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Memories of an Old Etonian 
1860-1912 




L.^ 



The Rev. D. Hornbv, Provost of Eton. 



IFi-vniUpiece. 



Memories of an Old 
Etonian .•; i860 1912 

Ljy UeOrge UreVllle V; Author of " Society Recol 
lections in Paris and Vienna " and "More Society Recollections." 




WITH 22 ILLUSTRATIONS 
ON ART PAPER 



LONDON: HUTCHINSON S' CO. 
:: :: PATERNOSTER ROW :: :: 

,/ f / a ■ 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I I 

Early Recollections — Thackeray — The Princess Liegnitz — The 
Austrian Bandmaster — Society at Homburg — Frankfurt — 
Goethe and Beethoven — A Racing Coincidence 

CHAPTER II i8 

An Adventure in the Oden Wald — The Coiners of the Black 
Forest — Kirchhofer's School 

CHAPTER III 27 

Brussels — Ostend — General Sir John Douglas — Spa — " Cap- 
tain Arthy " — Boulogne 

CHAPTER IV 40 

A Painting by Romney — Hunter's School at Kineton — Corporal 
Punishment — A Sporting Parson — My School-fellows at Kine- 
ton — The Warre-Malets — Lord Charleville 

CHAPTER V 54 

My Mother's Recollections — The Cercle des Patineurs — Patti — 
Our Appavtemeiit in the Rue d'Albe 

CHAPTER VI 63 

I go to Eton— New Boy Baiting — My House Master — Mr. James's 
" Jokes " — My Room at Eton — Some Eton Masters — A Dis- 
orderly Form — Lacaita's Silk Hat — " Billy " Portman 



viii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VII 80 

An Amusing Incident — Lady Caroline Murray — An Anecdote of 
Queen Victoria — Lord Rossrnore's Wager — The Match at the 
Wall — Practical Jokes — Some Boys at James's 

CHAPTER VIII 94 

Athletic Sports at Eton — A " Scrap " — Lord Newlands — An 
Old Boy on Eton of To-day 

CHAPTER IX 103 

Lady Grace Stopford — Tipperary in 1870 — Robbed at Punches- 
town Races — I get my own back 

CHAPTER X no 

Dieppe under Prussian Rule — A Toilette by Worth — A Confirmed 
Gambler 

CHAPTER XI 116 

The Princess von Metternich — The Lady of the Luxembourg 
Gardens 

CHAPTER XII. 123 

Bonn — An Anecdote of Beethoven — The King's Hussars — The 
Howard Vyses — A German Professor on England — Domesti- 
cated Habits of German Girls — Professor Delbriick 

CHAPTER XIII 136 

The Countess Czerwinska — The Countess Broel Plater — Mile, de 
Laval — The Duchesse de Grammont — An Absent-Minded 
Gentleman — Dusauty, the Fencing Master — The Marquis of 
Anglesey — Charming Venezuelans — ^Miss Fanny Parnell 

CHAPTER XIV. . . ... . . .155 

Captain Howard Vyse — An Anecdote of Paganini — New Hats 
for Old Ones — Albert Bingham — Baron Alphonse de Roth- 
schild — -Madame Alice Kernave — Gambetta 

CHAPTER XV . . .168 

My First Night at Mess — Life at Shorncliffe — The Charltons 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XVI 175 

An N.C.O. of the Old School — Major Blewett — Captain Byron — 
Sandhurst 

CHAPTER- XVII 183 

I sail for India — Kandy — Dangerous Playmates — I arrive at 

Murree 

CHAPTER XVIII. . 190 

My Brother-Officers — " The Oyster " — In High Society — Our 
Menagerie 

CHAPTER XIX. . 198 

A Subalterns' Court-Martial — A Terrible Experience — High 
Mess-bills 

CHAPTER XX . .205 

Sialkote — Amateur Theatricals — An Ingenious Thief — Death 
of Albert Phipps — Agra — Voyage to England 

CHAPTER XXI 217 

Baroness James Edouard de Rothschild — At Carlsbad — Trans- 
ferred to the 3rd Battalion 

CHAPTER XXII .222 

My Brother-Officers — A M&salliance — Christy Minstrels and 
Tobogganing 

CHAPTER XXIII. . . 229 

Sarah Bernhardt in PA^iire-^ Vienna and Buda-Pesth 

CHAPTER XXIV 233 

Percy Hope- Johnstone — A " Special " to Aldershot — A Costume- 
Ball at Folkestone 

CHAPTER XXV 238 

The Oppenheims — St. James's and Winchester — The Colonel and 
Beauclerk 

CHAPTER XXVI 244 

Paris Again — Eccentricities of Captain " Rabelais " — A Fire in 
Barracks — A Trying Inspection 



X CONTENTS 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XXVII. 252 

Madrid and Cordova — Seville — General von Goeben and the Bull- 
fight — A View from the Alhambra — I rejoin my Regiment 

CHAPTER XXVIII. . '. 262 

I meet Byron Again — I endeavour to Exchange — Basil Mont- 
gomery — My Illness — Why I was not Placed on Half-pay 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Rev. D. Hornby, Provost of Eton 

Mrs. Ronalds .... 

Mrs. R. C. Kemys-Tynte, of Halswell (now Mrs 
Rawlins, mother of Lord Wharton) 

The Author's Father .... 

The Author's Mother .... 

The Author's Daughter 

The Author's Mother .... 

C. D. Williamson, at Eton with the Author 

Miss Mabel Warre-Malet 

The Author ..... 

Charles Balfour, at Eton with the Author 

Miss Minnie Balfour, sister of Hilda, Lady de 
Qifford 

W. H. Onslow, aged 13, afterwards Lord Onslow 
The Hon. Emily Cathcart, Maid of Honour to 
Queen Victoria. ..... 

Henry Hooker Walker, at Eton with the Author 
The Hon. J. W. Lowther, present Speaker of the 

House of Commons . 
The Duke of Rutland . 
The Author's Father . 
Madame Alice Kernave 
The late Earl of Berkeley 
Miss Augusta Charlton 
Miss Ida Charlton 



Frontispiece 
Facing p. 2 

3 
6 

12 
20 

40 
50 

51 
62 
80 

81 

82 

83 
90 

91 
98 
144 
164 
165 
172 
173 



MEMORIES OF AN OLD ETONIAN, 
1860-1912 



CHAPTER I 

Early Recollections — Thackeray — The Princess Liegnitz — The Austrian Band- 
master — Society at Homburg — Frankfurt — Goethe and Beethoven — A 
Racing Coincidence 

IT happened so long ago, and I was so very young at 
the time — not more than five or six years old — that 
I should be almost tempted to believe that it was all a 
dream, were it not for certain incidents which made an 
unforgettable impression upon my childish imagination. 
The scene was the Hotel de Russie at Frankfurt-on-the- 
Main ; the occasion the birthday of King William I. of 
Prussia, afterwards Emperor of Germany. The spacious 
grand staircase of the hotel was brilliantly lighted, and 
a red velvet carpet was laid down on the steps leading 
to the first floor. Up these steps came a succession of 
Ministers and generals, some in scarlet and gold lace, with 
the attila, heavily embroidered with gold lace and edged 
with brown fur, falling loosely over the left shoulder. When- 
ever an Austrian general, in his white uniform with scarlet 
facings and red trousers with deep gold lace stripe down 
the side, appeared, my heart, for some unknown reason, 
seemed to beat with delight. How I came to be there I 
don't quite know, but I can remember my surprise when 
I saw the big chandelier which hung over the staircase 
being lighted in broad daylight, and the red blinds near 
the entrttnce being drav/n down, which gave me a curious 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

impression, making me feel almost as though I were present 
at a funeral. It was, however, merely done to create a 
more imposing effect. 

A great silence pervaded the whole of the Hotel de 
Russie ; no one but royal servants stood by the front door ; 
and the only sound which I can recollect was the clinking 
of the sword worn by a general in full uniform as he mounted 
the red-carpeted stairs. On approaching a door on the 
first floor, the general or Minister gave his name in a 
mysterious whisper, when, after a few seconds, the door 
was opened, and I heard a kind of buzzing noise, as of 
several persons talking at once in low tones. Then I 
can remember that, after a long interval, which seemed 
hours to me, the mysterious folding-doors were thrown wide 
open, and a veritable kaleidoscope of colour presented itself 
to my wondering eyes. It was the effect of the various 
uniforms worn by the Ministers and generals, as they 
emerged en masse from the room and began to descend the 
staircase, talking loudly as they passed. 

Soon afterwards, when they had all taken their departure, 
the brilliant lights were lowered, and silence again descended 
on the hotel. That is all I can remember, and of what 
became of me afterwards I have no recollection. That 
afternoon remains in my memory like a fairy-tale, and so 
comical did it appear to me, that I have often thought of 
it since. There was something so mysterious about the 
way each Minister and general entered that door after 
whispering his name ; and then the buzz of conversation, 
which was distinctly audible during the few seconds the 
door stood open, to be succeeded by an almost death-like 
silence. 

I can remember, just about this time, being alone in an 
immense salon with six windows, all of which overlooked 
the Zeil, one of the principal streets in Frankfurt. At either 
extremity of this room stood a big stove of white porcelain, 
and its walls were decorated with large pictures. One of 
these pictures represented the capture of Troy. The town 
was in flames, and a huge, grey wooden horse stood in the 




Mrs. Ronalds. 



[To face p. 2. 




Mrs. R. C. Kemys-Tynte, of Halswell (now Mrs. 
Rawlins, mother of Lord Wharton). 



ITo face p. 3. 



Early Recollections 

foreground, with a hole in its side from which soldiers 
were emerging and descending a ladder supported against 
the horse's flank. This was one of my favourite pictures 
in the room. Another represented the Cyclopes, with their 
one eye in the centre of their forehead, engaged in heating 
an iron bar in a furnace. I remember that I used frequently 
to contemplate this picture and wonder what it all meant, 
and if the Cyclopes really existed and where they lived. 
At night, it used rather to frighten me, particularly when I 
was left alone in the room, which frequently happened at 
this time. Another picture represented Venus, with Cupid 
aiming one of his arrows at her. This rather pleased me. 
I did not know then the mischief wrought by Cupid's 
arrows, and, in my innocence, was simple enough to believe 
that Venus was an angel of love ; and I pitied her for being 
struck by one of Cupid's arrows, which, in another picture 
in the room, had penetrated her bosom, causing a stream 
of blood to trickle down the alabaster whiteness of her 
body. The room had two large chandeliers, but when I 
was alone in it, only one of them was lighted. 

I can remember once, during the daytime, while looking 
out of the window, I saw some Prussian Hussars, in their 
dark-blue uniforms trimmed with silver lace, riding past. 
One of the horses shied at something, and its rider fell 
heavily, which caused a great crowd to assemble. I don't 
know what happened afterwards ; it was just one of those 
things that I saw as though in a dream. 

I recollect on one occasion occupying the bedroom and 
sleeping in the bed used by the King of Prussia when he 
visited Frankfurt. This room was very gorgeously fur- 
nished, the walls being draped with dark-blue satin, while 
the bed had a canopy surrounded by heavy curtains of 
blue silk. 

So far as I can remember, it must have been some months 
after this that I spent an evening in the room where the 
King of Prussia's birthday-fete had been held. It was then 
occupied by the late Mrs. Ronalds, a lovely woman, quite 
young, with the most glorious smile one could possibly 

3 I* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

imagine and most beautiful teeth. Her face was perfectly 
divine in its loveliness ; her features small and exquisitely 
regular. Her hair was of a dark shade of brown — chdtain 
jonce — and very abundant. I was in Mrs. Ronalds' s care 
on this occasion, and I can still see her before me as she was 
then, and remember that she spoke with a slight American 
accent. The late Captain Frederick Dorrien, of the 1st 
Life Guards, an old Etonian and a very handsome man, 
v/hom Queen Victoria called " her handsome lieutenant," 
after inquiring his name when he rode beside her carriage 
one day in full uniform, came to pay Mrs. Ronalds a visit 
that evening ; and I can still remember her singing in a very 
beautiful voice, which everyone praised enthusiastically, 
and also a tiny watch set in brilliants, and always very 
much admired, which she wore on her finger. 

I used to be taken occasionally to the Zoological Gardens 
at Frankfurt, where a Prussian military band played on 
Sunday afternoons, and I took a fancy to what I thought 
was a large dog. I used to stroke it, and it often licked 
my hand after I had fed it with biscuits and seemed to 
know me. One day, however, to my surprise, I saw it put 
into the same cage as the wolves, and learned that it was 
a wolf, which had been placed for a time in a cage by itself. 
I still felt a great wish to stroke it, but was hot allowed to 
do so. 

Whether it was some months later or some months earlier 
than this I cannot say, for, with a child, such things as 
time and space are of no account, which brings a child 
nearer to the Divinity than grown-up people. I can only 
recall giving my hand, when at Homburg vor der Hohe, to 
what seemed to me an elderly gentleman, who often took 
me across the garden of the Kurhaus and up the steps of 
the Kursaal into the restaurant, where, seated at a buffet, 
was a stout, pleasant-looking old lady, who ahvays greeted 
me affectionately and gave me, at the gentleman's request, 
my favourite fruit, nectarines and amandes vertes. I can 
remember how kind this gentleman always was to me, 
taking me constantly for walks in the garden of the Kurhaus, 

4 



Thackeray 

and always holding me by the hand. The name of the 
pleasant old lady was Madame Chevet, a Parisienne, to 
whom the restaurant at the Kurhaus belonged, and the 
gentleman, who was a great friend of my parents, was 
Thackeray, the author of " Vanity Fair." I can remember 
nothing else about him, except that he appeared to be very 
devoted to me.* 

I used to wear white frocks with lace and embroidery, 
some of which had been given to my mother for me by 
H.R.H. the Duchess of Gloucester, when my mother's 
aunt, Lady Caroline Murray, was lady-in-waiting to Her 
Royal Highness. t I used at that time to be dressed like 

* I heard from the late Lady Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, some little 
time before her deatli. She was kind enough to be interested in this book, 
but told me that she was a young girl when her father was at Homburg and 
had scarcely any recollection of those days. My father used often to observe 
that Thackeray was one of the most charming and amusing men he ever 
knew, and seemed surprised when I told him that I remembered so little 
of him at Homburg, saying that he was nearly always with us at the Kursaal 
or in the grounds of the Kurhaus and was exceedingly fond of me. 

f Henry Greville \\Tites in his diary, imder date October 12th, 1846 : " Came 
to Worsley with Slade, found here party assembled to meet the Duchess of 
Gloucester. Lady Caroline Mi.u:ray was in attendance on the Duchess, 
who is the most amiable and least troublesome Princess it is possible to see." 

One day a very nervous lady called on the Duchess of Gloucester, a daughter 
of George III., and remained a long time, being tmder the impression that 
Her Royal Highness would give the signal when she wished her to withdraw, 
and fearing to commit a breach of etiquette if she rose before the duchess. 
However, after a very long time, Her Royal BUghness rose and left the room, 
upon which the lady retired. The latter was in great distress when she 
was subsequently told of the mistake she had made. This incident was related 
to me by my mother, who was acquainted with the lady at the time. 

I may perhaps mention here an incident about Queen Adelaide, wife of 
William IV., who had a very slight acquaintance with the English language. 
One of the first sentences she learned by heart was : " How are you off for 
soap ? " Her Majesty was so pleased at being able to speak a little English 
that she asked this question of every lady whom she happened to address, 
smiling amiably the while. Some of them were rather astounded, but there 
Avas a certain fascination in this phrase which took Her Majesty's fancy, 
and it may be that the look of surprise on the faces of some of the old dowagers 
added to her delight and made her repeat it all the more. This anecdote 
was told me by a lady who had known Queen Adelaide personally and was 
often with her. 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

a girl, with my hair in long, dark-brown ringlets, and on 
one occasion my mother took me up to a very plain English 
lady in the grounds of the Kursaal, when the latter ex- 
claimed : " What a pretty boy ? He is more like a girl ! " 
Then, turning to me, she said : " My dear, will you allow 
me to kiss you ? " " Yes," I answered, and, holding up 
my bare arm, I added : " Kiss my elbow." My mother 
tried to persuade me to allow the lady to kiss me, but 
I only cried and said : " Oh ! not my face, only my elbow ! " 
One day, I remember, I was playing in the grounds of the 
Kursaal with a large india-rubber ball with two little girls, 
when a lady called them away, saying to the little girls, 
who were her daughters : " You must not play with a boy 
when you don't know who he is." That same evening, the 
Countess of Desart, who was lady-in-waiting to Queen 
Victoria, was dining at Madame Chevet's restaurant at the 
Kurhaus with my parents, and, happening to hear of what 
had occurred to me in the 'morning, said to my mother : 
" I will pay that woman out for her insolence. She is a 
nobody, and only the wife of a Law lord." When Lady 

C , the mother of the two little girls, arrived for dinner 

at the Kurhaus, the countess purposely did not rise to 
enter the dining-room for a very long time, which annoyed 
Lady C immensely, as she dared not enter the dining- 
room until the countess had risen from her seat to do so. 
At dinner the countess said to Lady C : " I can under- 
stand how careful you have to be about whom your girls 
play with, as you don't quite know how to discriminate 

between common children and others." Lady C 

blushed crimson, but did not venture to make any reply.* 

* In after years, at Aldershot, I knew the late General Lord C , son 

of the above mentioned Lady C , very well. Once, at a concert, I played 

a piece of music on the zither, for which I received an encore, but a string of 
the instrument having broken, had to be replaced before I could take it. 

Lord C was kind enough to make a short speech for me and explain to 

the large audience what had happened, as I did not feel equal to doing so 
myself. He was a most kind and affable man and a good general, though the 
War Office, with their usual manque de tact, blamed him in the Zulu War 
for the faults of others as well, whose errors they wished to conceal. But, 

6 




The Author's Father. 



[To face p.6. 



The Princess Liegnitz 

The Countess of Desart maintained quite a princely estab- 
lishment at Homburg, having a French chef at her villa 
and a number of English servants, with carriages and 
horses besides. 

Among my father's friends then at Homburg r/as Sir 
Edward Hutchinson, whom the Prince Consort said was 
the handsomest man in England. His brother, General 
Coote Hutchinson, was also at Homburg. He had been a 
colonel at six-and-twenty, and was for many years the 
youngest general in the English Army. 

At Homburg we lived in a villa on the Unter Promenade, 
in which the Princess Liegnitz, the morganatic wife of 
Frederick III. of Prussia, also resided. I can remember 
so well a box of toys representing various animals which 
the Princess gave me, and also the Princess and her daughter 
driving up to the villa one day when I was walking with 
my father, when he made me go and speak to them. My 
father afterwards gave me a beautiful bouquet of red roses, 
which I took to Princess Liegnitz's salon, at which she 
seemed pleased, and, when she thanked me for them, gave 
me a kiss. King William of Prussia often visited his 
father's widow at the villa, where the Princess held a 
regular Court, and was treated as though she were Queen 
of Prussia, even by the King. When he met me in the 
grounds. His Majesty often gave me bonbons, and usually 
kissed me. I had at that time a very pretty English nurse, 
and King William was well known to be a great admirer 
of pretty faces. My pride was somewhat wounded when I 
was told that His Majesty's attentions to me may have been 
due in a very great measure to the attractions of my nurse. 

When the Princess Liegnitz left Homburg, great pre- 
parations were made at the villa for the Due de Morny, 

as General von Goeben, the celebrated Prussian general of division in the 
Franco-German War of 1870, said to me at Seville, where I lived in the same 
casa de huespedes with him for some weeks, ct propos of an affair of another 
kind : " What can you expect from a Secretary of State for War, who is a 
civilian. You might j ust as well have an old washerwoman ( Wdscherin) at the 
head of your War Office. She might perhaps even be more useful." 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

who intended to come and stay there. But before he left 
Paris for Homburg he was suddenly taken ill and died. 
His death caused a great sensation everywhere, and his 
servants, who had already arrived at the villa, went away 
at once and returned to Paris. 

Once a fortnight, on Sunday, an Austrian military band 
used to come from Rastatt to play in the grounds of the 
Kursaal. It played both in the afternoon and evening, 
and people sat on the lawns, enjoying the very fine music. 
Sometimes the Prussian military band came from Frank- 
furt, on which occasions I invariably used to cry. I some- 
times sat with my parents on a Sunday on the lawns. Count 
Perponcher, Oberst-Hofmeister to the King of Prussia,* 
the Countess of Desart, Sir Frederick Slade and his family, 
or other friends, generally sat with them. Count Per- 
poncher was a most agreeable and distinguished-looking 
man, and a great admirer of the Countess of Desart. The 
latter was not only a great beauty, but had a certain 
" grand air " about her, which is, as a rule, only to be 
found amongst the old nobility. . 

One day, v/hen the Austrian military band was playing, 
ray nurse and I had our early dinner at the Hotel de 
I'Europe. Opposite to us, sitting at the table d^hote, was 
the bandmaster Jeschko, with a very pretty woman seated 
on either side of him. I noticed that he was making love 
to both of them, and said to my nurse : 

* Count Perponcher always selected the ballet dancers for the Opera in 
Berlin. Many years ago I made the acquaintance at Milan of a lovely, 
fair Polish girl, Marie Urbanska by name, who was studying dancing there, 
and danced occasionally in the ballet at La Scala. She was then sixteen, 
and during her stay at Milan, all her expenses were paid by Count Perponcher. 
The Emperor William always called her " the little Countess " (die Kleine 
Grdfin), as her father was a Polish count, and she was still second danseuse 
at the Berlin Opera twelve years ago. One night, as she was ascending the 
stairs at the Villa Manzoni, where I too was staying, she was seized and gagged 
and conveyed to the house of a gentleman, who told her that he was in love 
with her. But she insisted on leaving the house, which he allowed her to 
do. The man in question, who was a German, was obliged to leave Milan, 
in consequence of tliis affair, which, however, was hushed up, as he came of 
a well-known family in Germany. 



The Austrian Bandmaster 

" Look at the Austrian bandmaster : he has two such 
pretty wives ! " 

" You silly boy, why do you talk such nonsense ? '* 
answered my nurse. 

" But he is making love to both, and so they are to him," 
I persisted. 

" You should not look at people you don't know ; they 
may be his sisters." 

" I am sure they are not, for look at papa and his sisters." 

" Well, whatever they may be, it is not for a child like 
you to ask about them. I've no doubt that one is the 
gentleman's wife and the other his sister." 

" Couldn't they both be his wives ? " 

" No ; such a thing would not be allowed."- 

I continued to gaze at this handsome man, with his very 
long, fair moustache, highly curled. He seemed so good- 
looking in his white uniform with its pink facings, and the 
two ladies kept stroking his hands on the table and looking 
with admiration into his blue eyes. They both addressed 
him as " Du,'' and appeared so very fond of him, that I 
said to myself that I could quite understand these girls 
being in love with him, as he was so handsome. The white 
uniform and the fine military appearance of this Austrian 
bandmaster at table no doubt greatly impressed my childish 
inlagination, as I had never seen any one like him before, 
while his fair companions were both excessively pretty and 
dressed in the most charming confections imaginable. It 
was a sight which, when I grew older, never faded from 
my memory, while many other events, perhaps of far greater 
importance, were entirely obliterated. Stilgebauer, a very 
celebrated modern German author, who wrote " Love's 
Inferno," says : " Only that which we do not wish to, or 
may not, remember is over ; everything else is ours and 
never over or lost to us." 

At Homburg, when the Austrian military band played, 
the grounds at night were illuminated with red, white and 
blue lights, and the fireworks were the admiration of the 
whole world, as M. Blanc spared no expense whatever. 

9 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

This, indeed, he could well afford to do, in view of the 
immense profits he derived from the gaming-tables. 

There was at Homburg in those days a young French girl 
of noble family, who was about thirteen years of age and 
very lovely, with a beautiful complexion. She was always 
exquisitely dressed, usually in white tulle with a great deal 
of lace, and was admired by everyone. This youthful beauty 
used to play a game of forfeits in a ring with some boys, 
who always arranged as a forfeit for the girl that she should 
kiss them. One day, when I was about seven years old, 
the children invited me to play with them. I did so, and 
was kissed by the little girl, at which I was much ashamed, 
as, though I rather liked being kissed by her, I was 
decidedly bashful when the operation was performed in the 
presence of so many people. And so, when I was asked to 
play again, I refused. This young lady often got her lovely 
white dress torn to shreds by the rough boys who played 
with her, but she went on playing every day all the same. 

I remember once travelling by train with my father from 
Homburg to Frankfurt, when Goldschmid, a wealthy Jewish 
banker with red hair, who was in the same compartment, 
went fast to sleep. My father told me he was going to have 
some fun with him, and was pretending to take away his 
watch and chain, when Goldschmid suddenly woke up and 
exclaimed : — 

" Gott, wirkUch ich dachte Sie hdtten meine Uhr wegge- 
nommen .' " 

He was evidently under the impression that my father 
had evil intentions, and it was not for some time afterwards 
that he could understand that it was only a joke. Gold- 
schmid, many years afterwards, was ruined by his own 
brother, and committed suicide by drowning himself in 
the Main. They were cent, per cent. Jew moneylenders 
and bankers, who helped to ruin many English people in 
those days at Homburg. 

I can well recollect seeing my father on one occasion in con- 
versation with Garcia, a dark, good-looking Italian, who had 
several times broken the bank at Homburg liy his high play. 

10 



Society at Homburg 

He had begun his gambling operations when quite a poor 
man. I can also recollect Madame Kisilieff, who was a great 
gambler in those days, and was a good deal with my parents 
at Homburg. She was an immensely wealthy Russian lady 
of noble birth, who lived there en grand luxe. 

The English colony at Homburg during the gambling days 
was very different from what it is now. There was more 
youth and beauty to be seen there and more of the aristocracy ; 
whereas to-day more old people and wealthy parvenus go to 
Homburg during the season. Chevet's Restaurant, though 
dreadfully expensive, was excellent ; while the modern 
German one, though also dear, is not especially good. 

I cannot recollect what year it was, but I can remember 
the Railway King, Hudson, taking another boy named 
Jeffreys and myself, whom I afterwards met at Eton, to 
dine with him at Chevet's Restaurant, where he regaled us 
with every kind of luxury that the place could provide. My 
mother once told me a story about Mrs. Hudson, which she 
had heard from her father : — 

Mrs. Hudson one day received a visit from the Duke of 
Wellington, whom she saw arrive, accompanied by a well- 
dressed and very distinguished-looking man, who remained 
outside when the Duke entered the house. Presently it 
came on to rain heavily. 

" I will ask your friend up out of the rain," said Mrs. 
Hudson to the Duke. 

The Duke replied that the man was his servant ; but 
Mrs. Hudson, who could not bring herself to believe that 
such an aristocratic-looking person could be the servant 
even of the Duke of Wellington, and thought that the latter 
was joking, insisted on the man being shown upstairs. 

My grandfather's brother-in-law, General the Hon. Sir 
George Cathcart, was A.D.C. to the Duke of Wellington at 
Waterloo, and was second-in-command to Lord Raglan in 
the Crimea, where he was killed at Inkermann. He was my 
godfather, and I often heard my father say that he always 
had a cigar in his mouth, even in action. Once he was asked 
by the authorities at the War Office how long he required 

II 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

to get ready for active service. His answer was that he 
was ready to go anywhere at twenty-four hours' notice. 

My parents, one year, lived at the Hotel de Russie at 
Frankfurt, going to Homburg in the evenings. There was 
a Baron von Neii, an Austrian major of dragoons, staying 
at the " Russie." He was married to an Englishwoman, but 
they had no children, and, taking a great fancy to me, he 
wanted to adopt me and give me the right to bear his name 
and title, which is frequently done in Austria. He and his 
wife lived afterwards at Beaulieu, near Nice, where they 
had a charming villa with a beautiful rose-garden, where I 
have been to see them in more recent years. 

Baron von Neii told me that there was once an English- 
man, a Major Isaacson, in his regiment, who could not speak 
two words of the Hungarian language. Nevertheless, he 
contrived to retain his place in the regiment for many years, 
being always prompted when he had to give orders by a 
sergeant. One day, however, during an inspection by a 
general, the sergeant happened to be away, with the con- 
sequence that the poor officer was perfectly helpless, and, 
after calling out several wrong words of command, was 
detected and placed on half-pay. 

There were at this time at Homburg two Misses Lee 
Willing, nieces of the famous General Lee, of the Southerners. 
One was a great beauty, who, it v^^as reported, had received 
innumerable offers of marriage, from a prince downwards, 
but had refused them all. She was called the " Destroying 
Angel," because she had been the cause of so many duels 
being fought on her account. She was constantly in the 
company of my parents, and, many years later, we met her 
again in Paris. So far as I can remember, she could never 
decide to take a husband, and died in Paris while still a 
great beauty. 

Her cousin, Willing Lee Magruder, had been with the Em- 
peror Maximilian of Mexico at the time he was shot by his 
revolted subjects, and only escaped a similar fate by the 
skin of his teeth. His sister was lady-in-waiting to the 
Empress Charlotte of Mexico, and, after the Emperor's 

12 




y 



y 



\ 



The Author's Mother. 



[_Tof(icep. 12. 



Frankfurt 

death, the brother and sister occasionally dined with us 
in Paris, and we often met them in later years in Paris 
society. When leaving Mexico, Magruder and his sister 
were shipwrecked, and he told me that they passed several 
hours in the sea clinging to a plank. At night they were 
rescued by a passing ship, almost exhausted by hunger, 
thirst and fatigue. His sister never quite recovered from 
the shock to her system, and suffered much from a nervous 
complaint ever afterwards. 

I can remember that, while at the H6tel de Russie, my 
mother used constantly to be reading French novels, which, 
during her absences at Homburg, my French nurse used 
to get hold of. I was particularly interested in la Reine 
Margot and le Chevalier de Maison Rouge, by Alexandre 
Dumas pere, which delighted me more than any other 
books. I read " Joseph Andrews," which my father bought 
for me, but he told me that he thought I was not quite old 
enough to appreciate or even to understand most of it. 

I used always to be much interested in the Eschenheimer 
Thor at Frankfurt, as at the top of it there was a tiny iron 
flag, in which nine holes were pierced, representing the figure 
nine. The story about this flag is that a certain poacher, 
who had been arrested and condemned to death for shooting 
deer, was offered a pardon, if he could put nine bullets into 
the flag in such a way as to form the figure nine. This he 
succeeded in doing, and was set at liberty. 

When you looked at the flag this seemed hardly credible ; 
it was so tiny, and the nine was so wonderfully pierced. 
The Eschenheimer Thor has since disappeared to make room 
for the so-called improvements of Frankfurt. 

I can remember being taken to the celebrated Romer at 
Frankfurt, where the Emperors of Germany were formerly 
crowned. The Kaisersaal, where the coronation used to 
take place, was an immense room, containing portraits of the 
different Emperors. I was much interested in Karl I., and 
still more in Rudolph von Hapsburg, the ancestor of the 
present Emperor of Austria, and I also took particular note 
of those of Giinther von Schwarzburg and Maximilian I., 

13 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

as I was very fond of German history. The coronation room 
was beautifully decorated, the walls and doors being sump- 
tuously gilded. On the latter were represented several 
children, wearing royal crowns and garments of gold, which 
pleased me very much. 

Another time, I was taken by my French nurse, so far as 
I can remember, to see Dannecker's celebrated statue of 
Ariadne, and was somewhat startled at finding myself in a 
perfectly dark room, in which you could only see a red velvet 
curtain facing you. Soon, however, the curtain was drawn 
back, when a perfectly white statue of a nude woman riding 
upon a lion appeared before us. The woman was exquisitely 
formed, and was reclining indolently upon the animal's 
back. A rose-coloured light Avas thrown upon the statue, 
which made its hue all the more dazzling, and it revolved 
slowly on its axis, so as to display the lovely form of the 
woman to better advantage. I was glad that it was dark, 
for I fancied that I should have felt more awkward if anyone 
had seen me. As it was, I blushed crimson, and was 
pleased to get into the street. All the same, I have never 
forgotten this lovely statue and the rose-coloured light 
employed to show off its beauty. 

I went to the Jewish quarter, where the old tumbledown 
house in which the Rothschilds had once lived* was pointed 
out to me, but it was such a dirty quarter of the town that 
I never returned there. I once visited the Synagogue, and 
was surprised to see all the men wearing their hats. It 
made me think of the time of Christ, and that with certain 
Jews very little had altered since those days. I wondered 



* The late Baron Ferdinand de RothscMld told a young English girl of 
sixteen whom I knew that, if he could by some means regain his youth, 
like Faust in Goethe's play, and be the same age as she was, he would willingly 
give up his entire fortune. He was then about fifty-foiu- years of age. When 
the young lady in question repeated this to a late member of the Turf Club 
in my presence, the latter observed : " Ferdy must have set a high value 
on his youth, for I asked liim to let me have £200 lately for a common friend 
who was at school with us and is now ruined, which he refused to do. Con 
sequently, I have quarrelled with him for ever." 

14 . 



Goethe and Beethovea 

why such men as Goldschmid at Homburg were allowed to 
carry on their villainous trade with Christians. 

The new theatre at Frankfurt is a very fine building, in 
which there is a statue of Goethe, which is greatly admired. 
An amusing anecdote is related of Goethe, who was born 
at Frankfurt. One day he and Beethoven were walking 
together, and many people who met them raised their hats. 
" How tiresome it often is to be recognized by so many 
persons ! " complained Goethe. To which Beethoven replied 
somewhat maliciously : " Perhaps it is me they are 
greeting." 

Speaking of Goethe, the celebrated Austrian poet Grill- 
parzer says : — 

" Schiller geht nach oben, Goethe kommt van ohen. 
His characters usually say everything beautiful that can 
be said about a subject, and for nothing in the world 
would I care to miss any of the beautiful speeches in Tasso 
and Iphigenia, but they are not dramatic. That is why 
Goethe's plays are so charming to read and so bad to act. 
However much we may think of Goethe, the fact remains 
that his Wanderjahre is no work, the second part of Faust 
no poem, the maxims of the last period no lyrics. Goethe 
may be a greater poet, and no doubt is ; but Schiller is a 
greater possession for the nation, which requires vivid 
impressions in our sickly times. Goethe's Wilhelm Meister 
and Philine Sarto and the Countess have all distinct and 
artistically well-formed characters, though they are all in 
danger of being condemned as without any character. This 
fate they share with Hamlet and Ph^dre, with King Lear 
and Richard II. ; perhaps also with Macbeth and Othello. 
The W ahlverwandtschajten is a great masterpiece. In know- 
ledge of humanity, wisdom, sentiment and poetic strain it 
has not its equal in any literature. With the exception of 
those produced by Goethe in his youth, his works were not 
popular with the nation, and the great respect shown him 
was the result of the admiration which his masterpieces of 
the past had aroused." 

Frederick the Great said of Goethe : " His early works 

15 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

are too natural, and his late ones too artificial. Besides, 
he is an immoral poet. Fallen girls are his favourite 
characters." A very true saying of Frederick the Great 
is : "A court of justice which pronounces an unjust 
sentence is worse than a band of murderers." Frederick 
was always a great admirer of Voltaire, and one of his 
famous sayings is : " Unsere XJnsterhlichkeit ist, den 
Menschen Wohlthaten zu erweisen." (" Our immortality 
consists in performing good deeds to mankind.") 

In recent years I went to the celebvated Palmen Garden 
in Frankfurt, where the palm-trees are all from the late 
Duke of Nassau's beautiful palace at Biebrich. I went 
there with an English lady to an afternoon concert. My 
companion remarked how ordinary all the people looked 
compared with those one saw at a concert at Vienna, and 
drew my attention to a table at which sat four men dressed 
in very shabby, old-fashioned clothes. I was anxious to 
remain and hear the concert out, but was afraid the lady 
might decide to leave early, owing to the little interest she 
appeared to find in the audience. So I said at random : — 

" You are quite right, but with regard to the men sitting 
at that table, I should not be surprised if they were mil- 
lionaires." 

She laughed and seemed to be much amused at the 
idea, and a waiter coming up just at that moment with 
some coffee and cakes we had ordered, I asked him if 
he knew who the four men were. He replied at once : — 

" They are four millionaires." 

I may mention that I had never seen these men before 
in my life, and was only staying at Frankfurt two days. 

At Franzenbad, from which I had just come, I had a 
singular experience. On entering the Kursaal one Saturday 
afternoon a programme of the music was handed me. The 
piece which was being played was a polka, by Edward Strauss, 
called Con Amore, and I noticed that each of the eight 
pieces on the programme contained a letter of this name. 
I took this as a kind of presentiment, and the same day tele- 
graphed to a bookmaker named Horner, in the Krugerstrasse 

i6 



A Racing Coincidence 

at Vienna, to back the horse of this name running in the 
principal event in the Baden races the following Sunday. 
He duly executed my commission, and the horse won, 
though it did not start favourite. I won very little, however, 
as the odds were not as long as I had expected. The pro- 
gramme of the concert at Franzensbad was as follows : — 

Saturday, 25th June, 1904. Kurhaus, 4 p.m. 



1. Wiedermann Marsch . . . 

2. Ouverture, Oberon 

3. Ballerinen Walzer 

4. Potpourri aus Obersteiger . 

5. Con Amore Polka 

6. Ouverture, Belagerung von Corinth 

7. Am Spinnrad .... 

8. Frisch heran Galop 



Oelschlegel. 

Weber. 

Weinberger. 

Zeller. 

Ed. Strauss. 

Rossini. 

Eilenberg. 

Johann Strauss. 



The Hotel de Russie, in those days, occupied the site of 
the present Post Office. It was originally a palace, and the 
rooms were magnificent, particularly those reserved for the 
King of Prussia, which my parents occupied for a time, as 
did Mrs. Ronalds. Otherwise, this suite of rooms was 
always kept for the King of Prussia when he cared to visit 
Frankfurt, which His Majesty often did, staying there 
usually some time. The proprietor of the Hotel de Russie 
was a certain Herr Ried, and, on his death, it was purchased 
by the Drexel brothers, who are now wine-merchants of 
some celebrity in Frankfurt. 



17 



CHAPTER II 

An Adventure in the Oden Wald — The Coiners of the Black 
Forest — Kirchhofer's School 

WHEN I was seven years old, my parents left me at a 
school in Frankfurt, kept by Herr Kirchhofer, a 
good-looking', fair-haired man of thirty-five. He was married 
and had an only son named August, who in later years 
entered the Austrian Army, and got terribly into debt when 
a lieutenant. His father paid his debts, but after he married 
he got into further trouble, and ended by shooting himself, 
while still quite young. During my stay at this school I. 
spoke nothing but German all day, with the exception of a 
little French occasionally, and, in consequence, completely 
forgot the English language for the time being. 

One day, Herr Kirchhofer told one of the assistant masters, 
Herr Wolf, a young man of five-and-twenty, that he might 
take six of the boys, of whom I was one, for a three days' excur- 
sion in the Oden Wald. We started at five o'clock in the 
morning and walked for some hours, when I became so tired 
that I could go no farther. So Close, an English boy of 
eighteen, who was going into the Austrian Army, and 
another boy, a German, carried me on a kind of camp-stool 
a long way. 

When we got to the Oden Wald, we wandered about 
collecting plants, which Herr Wolf required for his lessons in 
botany. Then, after dining at an inn, we started again, 
with the intention of reaching a village which the master 
knew by name. On the v^ay we passed a small village, 
where a man offered to take charge of me, and I was very 

18 



An Adventure in the Oden Wald 

much afraid our master would leave me with him. I begged 
him not to do so, and was greatly relieved when he said : 

" You don't think I should he so foolish ? Why, the 
man might run off with you." 

Some time afterwards, it began to grow quite dark, and 
Herr Wolf became much alarmed, as we had completely lost 
our way in the forest. However, we saw some lights in the 
distance, and walked on until we came to a small village, 
where there was a house which purported to be an inn, 
though all its windows were broken and mended with pieces 
of newspaper. 

Herr Wolf entered this uninviting hostelry and inquired 
if we could have one large room to sleep in, as he told Close 
and another big boy, a German, that he was afraid that 
we might possibly be murdered in the night, if we were 
separated. I may here mention that, in those days, some 
parts of the Oden Wald were infested by gangs of robbers, 
and instances were known of people being given beds which 
revolved in the night and precipitated their unfortunate 
occupants into pits beneath the floor. 

The inn-keeper, a sinister-looking personage, with his face 
almost entirely covered with hair, said that he had not a 
room large enough to accommodate our whole party, but 
that we could have two rooms. Herr Wolf asked if they 
were near each other, to which the man replied that one 
was upstairs, but the other on the ground floor. The master, 
looking much annoyed, asked to see the rooms, and, after 
inspecting them, inquired if Close had a revolver with him. 
The latter said he had not, though he had brought a sword- 
stick. But another boy, an American, called Sydney 
Chapin, exclaimed : — 

" I have a loaded revolver with me." 

" That's famous ! " replied Herr Wolf. " Then you must 
give it me, for I will occupy the room on the ground floor 
with George, and you others must sleep upstairs." 

The master then took the revolver, and told Close thit 
he must take charge of th« other boys in the room 
upstau's. 

19 2* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

When this had been arranged, we all entered the so-called 
dining-room, a large room, with whitewashed walls. Its 
windows, like all the rest in the house, were broken and 
patched with newspapers ; the ceiling was so low that you 
could almost touch it with your hands, and crossed by large 
beams. In one part of this room, four rough-looking men 
were playing cards and drinking beer out of mu^s. They 
were in their shirt sleeves, with sleeves tucked up to the 
elbow, displaying very muscular arms, while their shirts, 
open at the neck, showed their naked chests covered with 
hair. Although it was summer and excessively hot, all of 
them wore fur caps. 

They were playing by the glimmer of a solitary tallow 
candle, which was the only light in the room, and when we 
took our seats with our master at another table, we found 
ourselves almost in the dark. Presently, our supper was 
brought us, consisting of cold meat and mugs of beer, and 
Herr Wolf asked for a candle. The inn-keeper muttered 
sullenly that he had none. 

" What ! Have you no light of any description ? " asked 
the master. 

" No, I have just told you so," was the reply. 
Herr Wolf was visibly alarmed, but Close whispered to 
him : — 

" I have a box of matches." 
" Gott sei dank ! " exclaimed the other. 
After some whispered instructions to Close, the master 
rose from the table, when I observed the card-players casting 
surreptitious glances in our direction, although they pre- 
tended to be absorbed in their game. Herr Wolf then 
took me through the darkness into the bedroom on the 
ground floor, the gloom of which was partially relieved by 
a slight glimmer from the moon, which penetrated through 
the broken window. He struck a match, and, having shown 
me my bed, which stood near the window, told me to undress 
and go to bed. I did as he told me, and he then said that 
he was going upstairs to see after the other boys. 

While I lay in bed, I heard some noisy women passing the 

20 




The Author's Daug-hter. 



\_To face p. 20. 



An Adventure in the Oden Wald 

window. One of them put her head through one of the 
broken panes, and, on seeing me in bed, burst out laughing. 
Afterwards there was a dead silence, only interrupted occa- 
sionally by the loud oaths of the men plajnng cards in the 
dining-room, who appeared to be disputing about some 
money which had changed hands. The noise they made 
was becoming louder and louder, when I heard the door 
open, and Herr Wolf entered and inquired if I were asleep. 
He then went out again, saying that he would return later. 
The noise made by the gamblers then appeared to cease, 
and my weariness overcoming my fears, I suddenly dropped 
off to sleep. 

Early in the morning I awoke, and saw Herr Wolf dressing 
himself. I hardly knew where I was, when, on seeing that 
I was awake, he said : — 

" Du histfamos geschlajen, George'' 

After I had dressed, he told me to come with him into the 
dining-room, where all the others were gathered, and, after 
taking some coffee and black bread, we left the inn. Soon 
afterwards^, Herr Wolf told the boys that he had never been 
so alarmed in his life, and that he was quite positive that 
if the men at the inn had not known that some of the boys 
were armed, we should most probably have been murdered 
for the sake of our clothes and the money we had about us. 
He added that he had not slept a wink all night, as he knew 
what sort of men he had to deal with, and that they were of 
the very lowest type imaginable and capable of committing 
any crime to obtain a few groschen. 

At the time of which I am speaking, there were so many 
murders perpetrated near Homburg, owing to the gambling 
which went on there, that the police never knew whether 
they had really to deal with a suicide or a murder. The 
Oden Wald had then quite as bad a reputation as the Black 
Forest, which was infested by whole gangs of robbers and 
murderers. Herr Wolf told us a story of a man who, having 
lost his way in the Oden Wald, put up for the night at a 
small inn near a village, where they gave him some coffee 
before he went to bed. He could not sleep, and in the 

21 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

middle of the night he got up, lighted a candle and began 
examining a picture opposite his bed, which represented a 
man wearing a Rembrandt hat with a long feather. Gradu- 
ally, it seemed to him that the featlier was becoming shorter ; 
soon he could see only a part of the hat, and then merely the 
face. The man, thinking that there must be something 
wrong with him, jumped out of bed and approached the 
picture, which he found was exactly as when he had first 
seen it. But, on looking at his bed, he perceived that the 
baldachin over the four-poster was suspended by a chain 
from above the ceiling, and was gradually working its way 
downwards. An examination of the moving baldachin 
revealed the fact that it was made of massive iron, beneath 
which he would infallibly have been crushed to death. 
Dressing in all haste, and holding a pistol which he had 
about him ready to fire in ease of need, the destined victim 
left the room and stealthily descended the stairs. By good 
fortune he met no one, and letting himself out of the house, 
made his way to Homburg, where he informed the police 
of the murderous trap which had been laid for him. It was 
evident that the coffee which he had drank overnight had 
been drugged ; but, most providentially for him, the drug 
had had the contrary effect to that intended, and had kept 
him awake, instead of sending him to sleep. 

Herr Wolf told us other stories of the Black Forest, in 
which there were inns with revolving beds, which upset the 
persons who occupied them into pits beneath the floor, 
where the heavy fall generally killed them at once ; and 
Baron Vogelsang, a good-looking Bavarian boy, with blue 
eyes and curly brown hair, related the following anecdote : 

During the time of the great Napoleon,* the Emperor 

* A propos of Napoleon, it is strange how great was liis fondness for music. 
A person whose voice flattered his ear rarely displeased him. But, if a name 
had a harsh sound, he muttered it between his teeth, and never uttered it 
aloud. Grillparzer says of Napoleon : " Er war zu gross, weil seine Zeit 
zu klein." (" He was too great, because the age in which he lived was too 
little.") Napoleon imagined that he would have made Corneille a prince 
if he had lived in liis time, but it is more likely that he would have imprisoned 
him for life. 

22 



The Coiners of the Black Forest 

sent on one of his aides-de-camp to Germany with important 
despatches. This A.D.C. had to traverse the Black Forest, 
and on arriving as evening was falling at a certain country- 
house, asked if he could be accommodated for the night. A 
room was given him, but, at the same time, he was warned 
that the house was haunted, and, sure enough, in the middle 
of the night a ghost duly put in an appearance. The French- 
man, who had no belief in the supernatural, promptly 
snatched up a pistol and levelled it at the spectre, who 
thereupon vanished. The A.D.C. then hurried to the spot 
where the ghost had first appeared, when the floor suddenly 
gave way beneath him, and he fell what seemed a great 
distance. For the moment he was stunned by the fall, 
and, on recovering his senses, found himself surrounded by a 
number of men, who were debating whether they should 
kill him. He, however, explained who he was, and showed 
them the despatches from Napoleon of which he was the 
bearer ; and the men, fearing the vengeance of the Emperor, 
should the crime they were meditating ever be discovered, 
agreed to set him at liberty, on condition that he would take 
an oath to say nothing of what had happened to him in that 
house. They then told him that they were coiners, and that 
they killed everyone who slept at the house, but that they 
usually frightened so many away by tales that very few 
people cared to stop there. The Frenchman took the oath 
demanded of him, and was set at liberty so soon as day came. 
Years afterwards, he received a magnificent pistol, set with 
brilliants and rubies, with the following inscription engraved 
upon it : " From those whose secret you have so generously 
kept." The gift was accompanied by a letter, informing 
him that the coiners, having now succeeded in amassing an 
immense fortune, had retired from business. 

The day after our adventure at the inn was passed by our 
party in walking leisurely through the forest homewards, 
through a most glorious country and in most lovely weather. 
When we reached Frankfurt, Herr Kirchhofer congratu- 
lated Herr Wolf on our escape, and told him that it was very 
lucky that we had returned at all. 

23 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-191:^ 

Herr Wolf saw me in after days at Frankfurt, when he 
kissed me in German fashion, saying : " KannstDu Dicherin- 
nern von damals im Oden Walde, George?'" I thought it 
was our last day upon earth, and that we were going to be 
murdered there, like many others have been there before and 
even since those days. But I pretended not to be alarmed 
at the time, and made, the best of it. 

The time — rather more than a year and a half — I spent 
at this school at Frankfurt was one of the happiest periods 
of my life ; indeed, when my parents wanted me to stay at 
the Hotel de Russie, I cried and begged not to be taken away 
from the school. Herr Kirchhofer was a very pleasant, 
kind and good-hearted man, and a fine orator, one of the best 
I have ever heard ; and the lectures which he used to give 
on ancient Greek history were always extremely interesting. 
His lectures were always extempore, as his excellent memory 
made it unnecessary for him to refer to a book, and the 
way he declaimed was a pleasure to listen to, so well did he 
raise or lower his voice to suit the occasion. At times he 
became very dramatic, putting you in mind of some cele- 
brated actor on the stage, as he walked up and down 
the room, reciting from the classics and quite carrying 
away his audience. The only punishment inflicted on 
boys at this school was to shake them and smack their 
faces, which Herr Kirchhofer did himself, as well as the 
other masters, of whom there were eight or nine, although 
the school consisted only of ten boarders and fifty day- 
boarders. 

German and Austrian boys find more pleasure in taking 
long walks in the woods, making excursions, and running 
about than they do in games like football and cricket, for 
which few, if any, have any taste. In fact, I never knew any 
boys in Germany who cared much for any outdoor games at 
all. However, I have not the slightest doubt they enjoy 
their school-days quite as much as English boys, if not more ; 
and there is much more friendship between master and boys 
in Germany than there ever can be in England. In the 
former country, the master devotes more time to ascertaining 

24 



Kirchhofer*s School 

the tastes of individual boys, and addresses them more hke a 
friend than a master. When, afterwards, I was sent to an 
EngUsh school, I noticed the difference almost at once. 
At the school at Frankfurt I was most interested in the 
history of ancient Greece ; I was also fond of German history. 
Latin was not taught there, for which I was by no means 
sorry. I had no great fancy for botany, though I tried to 
like it ; but natural science rather piqued my curiosity. 
As for arithmetic, I hated it, and never knew the value of 
money ; in fact, I don't remember ever having any at that 
time, nor ever asking for any, as I had everything I required 
bought for me. I had a fancy for collecting stamps, and, 
in those days, there was a regular stamp market at Frank- 
furt, where they were sold in the street. I went there on 
one occasion, but was not very favourably impressed by the 
Jew dealers who hawked them about. 

I was passionately fond of tin soldiers, and used to play 
with them with a boy named Louis Krebs, who had a fine 
collection of both Austrian and Prussian ones. He had a 
pretty little sister called Klara, who always wore pink coral 
earrings and would often play with us. 

One day, Herr Kirchhofer told me that my parents were 
going to England and that they had arranged to take me with 
them. At first, I was quite unable to realize it, but when 
I learned that the news was true I was greatly distressed, 
and nearly cried my eyes out at having to leave Frankfurt 
and the school. I tried to prevail upon my parents to leave 
me behind, but my father would not hear of it, saying that 
I should have to go to a preparatory school for Eton, and that 
he had one in view, which my aunt, Lady Caroline Murray, 
had recommended. So I was forced, malgre moi, to submit 
to my parents' wishes. 

In recent years I met Krebs, the boy of whom I have just 
spoken, at Frankfurt, when he gave me a great deal of 
information about those who had been at school with us. 
He himself had become a millionaire ; but he was the only 
one who had made money. Most of the others had been far 
from successful in life, and one of the wealthiest, Baron 

25 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Vogelsang, had lost almost the whole of his immense fortune. 
Many had died quite young. Herr Kirchhofer had only 
lived a few months after the suicide of his son August, 
and Herr Wolf had also died while still quite a young 
man. 



i6 



CHAPTER III 

Brussels — Ostend — General Sir John Douglas — Spa — " Cap- 
tain Arthy " — Boulogne 

ON leaving Frankfurt, we went to Brussels, where we 
lived in a large house on the Boulevard de Waterloo, 
which looked out on to a very fine avenue of trees. Captain 
Dorrien came with us on a visit to my parents and stayed for 
some months. Captain Dorrien, in after years, lost his whole 
fortune, when the late Earl of Sheffield, who had been at 
Eton with him, insisted on his going to live at his fine house 
in Portland Place, where he was given full authority over 
all the servants, lived free of all cost to himself, and received 
a cheque for £500, while the Earl went for a six months' 
cruise in his yacht. This was told me by Captain Dorrien 
himself, at a time when he was in far better circumstances. 

Lord Hov/ard de Walden was then the English Minister 
at Brussels, and my parents were on very friendly terms with 
him and his family. Two of the sons came often to our house ; 
one was in the Royal Navy, and the other in the 60th Rifles. 
The eldest son, who afterwards succeeded to the title, was 
then in the 4th Hussars, but I never met him. Many years 
afterwards, I met Lady Hov/ard de Walden, then a widow, 
in India, at Murree, in the Himalayas, where she dined at 
our mess with her daughter. Miss Ellis. The two ladies were 
about to start on a journey to Kashmir, on ponies, as Lady 
Howard de Walden said that it was her intention to see as 
much of the world as she could before she died. She was 
then seventy. She added that it was a singular coincidence 
that the two regiments in which her sons had served — the 
4th Hussars and the 60th Rifles — both of vrhich she visited, 

37 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

should be quartered quite near Kashmir, the Hussars at 
Rawal Pindi, and the 2nd BattaHon, 60th Rifles, at Murree. 
Lady Howard de Walden accomplished the difficult journey 
to Kashmir and returned in safety. 

We were on friendly terms with the Baron de Taintegnies, 
who was in attendance on Leopold IL, King of the Belgians, 
and also with his three lovely daughters, who, with their 
cousins, the daughters of Baron Danetan, were considered 
the most beautiful girls in Brussels society at that time. 
One of the former married, in later years. Captain Stewart 
Muirhead, of the Blues, a friend of my father and of Captain 
Dorrien. 

Frederick Milbanke, of the Blues, an old Etonian, who was 
a great friend of my father, was at that time a good deal 
in Brussels, and married a Belgian actress there. Milbanke 
was heir to some of the Duke of Cleveland's estates, but 
he died before coming into this property. The last time I 
saw him was at the Alexandra Hotel, in London, where he 
and his wife had a very fine suite of rooms, when my father 
took me there to pay them a visit. Milbanke was a very 
handsome, fair man, and his wife a great beauty. I met 
the latter in after years at the Grosvenor Hotel, where 
she was staying with her son, a nice-looking boy, who had 
come back from Eton for the holidays. 

The winter at Brussels was rather a severe one, and there 
was plenty of good skating to be had. I remember learning 
to skate in the Bois de la Cambre, to which I went with 
my father. One day I was knocked down by some lady 
skaters, and had great difficulty in extricating myself from 
their petticoats. I fell very softly, but I was well-nigh 
smothered. I was glad when my parents left Brussels, as 
I had no companions there at all. 

There was then at Ostend a Mrs. Clifton, who had an 
exceedingly pretty daughter. Mrs. Clifton was a widow, 
and afterwards contracted a second marriage with a brother 
of Sir Walter Carew. When I was at school at Kineton, 
in Warwickshire, the mother and daughter paid me a visit, 
as they had an estate not far from the school. 

28 



Ostend 

One day, on the Digue at Ostend, I suddenly caught 
sight of my httle friend, Baron Vogelsang, who, leaving his 
father and mother, who were with him, ran up to me at 
once and kissed me on both cheeks. I saw a good deal of 
Vogelsang while I was at Ostend, going often on to the 
sands with him, and meeting him in the evening at the 
children's dance at the Casino. 

The Baron de Taintegnies's daughter used to attend those 
dances, to which the Due de Sequeira, a young boy I knew, 
generally went. Marie, the Baron's eldest daughter, who 
was a lovely girl, afterwards became the Baronne Le Clement 
de Taintegnies. She lives at Minehead, v/here she has a 
fine estate and hunts with the Devon and Somerset Stag- 
hounds. I heard from her quite recently. Her sister 
Isa, who married Captain Stewart Muirhead, is now a widow, 
her husband having died in Paris in 1906. She also hunts 
with the staghounds in Devonshire, and both sisters are 
well-known horsewomen. Aline, the youngest sister, who 
was called " Bebe," and whom I admired very much when 
a child at Brussels and Ostend, married, in 1871, Baron 
de Herissem, and, after his death, went to Italy, where she 
married again and lived for several years. She died at 
Ancona in March, 1906. 

There was a racing man at Ostend, named Captain Riddell, 
who won all the principal steeplechases that were run there. 
Mrs. Ind, the wife of the well-known brewer, was his sister. 
Riddell met with a very serious accident in a steeplechase 
at Ostend, injuring his spine. The horse which he was 
riding on that occasion was once ridden by my father on 
the sands, and he told me that he was a perfect devil to 
hold. When a young man, my father once rode a hundred 
miles in twelve hours on the same horse for a bet at Taunton, 
in Somerset, and won his wager easily, with plenty of time 
to spare. He and Charles Kinglake, a brother of the 
author of " Eothen," were the only persons who were willing 
to go up in a balloon at Taunton, when the first one came 
there, which was considered rather venturesome at the time. 
This reminds me that one of the oldest inhabitants of Bristol 

89 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

told me lately that he remembered when the first iron ship 
was launched at that port, and how all the residents declared : 
" The idea of iron floating is too absurd to entertain for 
one instant ; the ship is bound to sink, for iron can never 
be made to keep above water." 

The King and Queen of Wiirtemberg were both then at 
Ostend. Queen Olga, who was a Russian Grand Duchess by 
birth, was said to be the handsomest woman in Europe. 
She had very regular features, but was at that time ex- 
cessively pale and thin. Her niece, the Grand Duchess 
Olga, was the first proposed fiancee of Ludwig II., King of 
Bavaria. His Majesty, however, refused to marry her. This 
ii not generally known. The Grand Duchess Olga after- 
wards married the late King George of Greece. 

King Leopold II. and Queen Henriette were at Ostend 
at that time with their children, who used to drive on the 
sands in a small carriage drawn by four cream-coloured 
ponies. Baron de Taintegnies was usually on the Digue 
of an afternoon with the King, sitting down or walking 
about. 

Among my father's friends at Ostend were Lord Orford 
and Lord Brownlow Cecil. The latter was very fond of 
music, and married a lady there who was a magnificent 
pianist. One day I can remember my father sitting in the 
Casino with Henry Labouchere, an old Etonian, who had 
formerly been in the Diplomatic Service. Labouchere was 
smoking a big cigar, and he and my father had a long con- 
versation. What it was about, I cannot say, though they 
were continually laughing ; and my father told me after- 
wards that Labouchere was very amusing, and, though sar- 
castic, witty, and that he rather liked him.* 

* The late Henry Labouchere' s grandfather was, as a young man, a clerk 
in a bank in Somersetshire, and in receipt of a salary of about £80 a year, 
when he fell in love with Sir Francis Baring's daughter. As, in ordinary 
circumstances, he had not the smallest chance of obtaining the consent 
of the lady's father, he conceived the following ingenious plan of overcoming 
the difficulty. 

Presenting himself before the senior partner of the bank in which 

30 



General Sir John Douglas 

General Sir John Douglas, K.C.B., Commander of the Forces 
in Scotland, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, daughter 
of Earl Cathcart, were a good deal with my parents at Ostend. 
The General used to take long walks with my father, and 
he put my name down for his old regiment, the 79th High- 
landers, and for the Scots Guards. Sir John Douglas was 
extremely kind to me in after years, and invited me to stay 
with him at Edinburgh ; but I could not get leave from 
my colonel at the time, and consequently was obliged, to 
my great regret, to decline his kind invitation. 

My parents used very often to spend the summer months 
at Ostend, and one year they occupied the apartments 
at the Hotel de Prusse which the Russian Ambassador, 
Prince Orloff, had just vacated. One day, after washing 
my hands in my bedroom, I emptied the water out of the 
window, for some unaccountable reason. Later in the day, 
the Princess de Caraman-Chimay sent up her lady's maid 
to say that a dress which the Princess had intended wearing 
the following evening at a Court ball at Brussels had been 



he was employed, he inquired whether it would be possible for him to 
become a partner forthM'ith. The banker burst out laughing. "What, 
you ! " he exclaimed. " Why, you are only a junior clerk. How can you 
ever think of such a tiling ? The idea is simply ridiculous." " But sup- 
posing," rejoined Labouchere, with perfect aplomb, " that I had already 
received the consent of Sir Francis Baring to marry his daughter?" " Oh, 
that alters the case entirely. If what you say is true, then you could, of 
course, easily become a partner." Labouchere then approached Sir Francis 
Baring and asked him for his daughter's hand. That important personage 
was even more indignant at the young man's presumption than the banker 
had been, and told him what he thought of it very plainly. " But supposing," 
said Labouchere, not a whit disconcerted, "that I am not what you think I 
am, but a partner of the bank." The baronet's manner changed. " If," he 
answered, " you are a partner of the bank, as you tell me, I will talk the 
matter over with my daughter." In the result, Labouchere married Sir 
Francis Baring's daughter and became, at the same time, a partner in the 
Somersetshire bank. His son was created Lord TauntoUj and Henry 
Labouchere would have been heir to the title, but, as it was only a life peerage, 
it did not descend to him. This anecdote was related to me by an uncle of 
mine by marriage, who was Clerk of the Peace for the county of Somerset. 
I have heard it also related by others. 

31 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

completely spoiled by the water. I was well scolded by my 
mother for being the cause of this misfortune. 

The English clergyman at Ostend was a Mr. Jukes. He 
had a very good-looking son, a boj^ about my own age. He 
told me that he was in the habit of walking in his sleep, 
and showed me his bedroom window, which had a padlock 
on it. When I asked him where the key of it was, he said 
that they would not tell him, in case he might get up in the 
night, unlock it, and walk on the roof of the house, which, 
he said, he had done before. His father once met me with 
mine in the street, and when told that I was going into the 
British Arm)^ said that he entirely disapproved of soldiers, 
and thought that the time was near at hand when there 
would be no more wars and every dispute would be settled 
by arbitration. I fancied at that time that Mr. Jukes's 
prophecy might come true, but, as subsequent events proved, 
we were very far indeed from its realisation. 

Both the King and Queen of the Belgians Avere very 
popular with the inhabitants of Ostend. They used to 
walk on the Digue quite unattended, and seemed in no 
way inconvenienced by the crowd, who always treated 
them with the greatest respect. The King wore plain 
clothes, usually a dark suit with a tall white hat, and never 
appeared there in uniform. A very good story is told of 
Leopold II., who, some years ago, during the summer months, 
was at Luchon, in the Pyrenees. The day after he arrived 
there, the King sent for a hairdresser, and directed him to 
trim his silvery beard. When the operation was over. His 
Majesty inquired what he had to pay. 

" It will be twenty francs. Your Majesty," replied the 
hairdresser without hesitation. 

The King pulled out a two-franc piece, which he handed 
to this too facetious Figaro. 

" I am accustomed," said he, " to pay very well. Here 
is a two-franc piece. It is a new Belgian coin, and you 
will see my head on it, as you wished to pay yourself for 
it. (" Vous y verrez ma tete, puisque vous avez voulu vous 
la payer.") 



spa 

It is said that the hairdresser left without asking for 
the rest of the money, and that, since this adventure, he 
placed over his shop a fine board, inscribed : " Furnisher 
of H.M. the King of the Belgians." 

My mother spent a summer at Spa, where she took a 
house with a garden attached to it. I liked the place very 
much, and often went for rides on a pony in the woods 
with the late Captain Lennox Berkeley, who afterwards 
became Earl of Berkeley. The country round Spa is 
mountainous and very charming. Spa itself is an exceed- 
ingly pretty place, situated in a valley entirely surrounded 
by hills and woods, and the Ardennes are not far off. But 
in the summer months the heat is intense, and, when the sun 
once gets into the valley, there is often not a breath of air. 
The promenade, where the band plays morning and evening, 
is charming, and it is very pleasant to sit beneath the shady 
trees and listen to the excellent orchestra. I often used to 
go there with my mother, particularly of a morning, when 
all the monde eligant used to forgather to listen to the 
music. The gambling-rooms were then open for roulette 
and trente-et-quarante, and Captain Berkeley used often 
to try his luck at them, but, unfortunately, he was not 
successful. I can remember his giving me " Japhet in 
Search of a Father," by Captain Marryat, and recom- 
mending me to read it. I did so, and it amused me very 
much. 

Another of my father's friends, the late Captain Bromley, 
an old Etonian, and a son of Sir Thomas Bromley, was at 
Spa at the same time. One day, when I happened to tell 
him that I was going into the Army, he smiled, and said 
that he never could hit off with his colonel. The latter 
complained that he was always late for parade, and 
asked him if he did not hear the bugles sound. He 
answered : — 

" Yes, sir — I hear the bugles, but there must be something 
wrong with them, for they don't sound the right note." 
The Colonel soon found him incorrigible, and he himself 
that he was never made for a soldier. 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Bromley told me that, when a boy, he was accustomed 
to dine off gold plates and that everything he used at table 
was of gold. Suddenly, his father died, and his elder brother 
inherited the title and estates, while he was obliged to live 
on a few hundreds a year. This, he said, was the fault of 
our law of primogeniture, which ought only to take effect 
in the case of ducal houses, where the bearer of the title 
should be made to pay an " appanage " to the other members 
of the family, as is the rule on the Continent. 

It has often been asserted by authors of great authority 
that women are much meaner than men ; but I have known 
some instances to the contrary. Once, during our stay at 
Spa, a gentleman called on my mother, and told her that 
he had lost all he possessed, and asked her to lend him £50, 
as he was anxious to rejoin his wife. My mother, who had 
known him for years, said that she would give him all she 
had in the house — nearly £40 — for which he was very 
grateful, both at the time and when we met him and his 
wife in later years. 

Once I was staying with my father at Desseins Hotel, 
at Calais,* when he told me that he had made the acquaint- 
ance of an Englishman, a certain Captain Arthy, who was 
rather a singular character, indeed, highly eccentric. It 
appeared that he had just lost his wife, and that he was 
so distressed at her death that he wore all the trinkets 
which had belonged to her on his watch-chain, to show his 
affection for her. He had not, however, gone into mourn- 
ing, and always affected a red tie, saying that he wore the 
mourning in his heart, upon which he used to lay his hand 
as he spoke. I was introduced to Captain Arthy, who was 
a bald-headed man, with black side-whiskers and rather a 
red face, dressed in a light suit of clothes. The quantity 
of charms on his watch-chain would have almost filled the 
window of a jeweller's shop, while numerous rings adorned 

* Desseins Hotel has been demolished in recent years. It was a most 
luxurious hotel, and is mentioned in the works of Sterne, Thackeray and 
Dickens. 

34 



** Captain Arthy " 

his fingers. He was perpetually smiling, displaying a set 
of very fine teeth when he did so. 

He invited my father and me to see his rooms, which were 
full of gold and silver cups, which he told us, had belonged 
to his late wife. The late Mrs. Winsloe, whose husband 
was a friend of my father, was staying at this hdtel. Mr. 
Winsloe was a well-known man in Somersetshire, but he had 
recently gone out of his mind. His wife had been a great 
beauty, but she was then terribly made up, with fair dyed 
hair. 

Mrs. Winsloe, who lived in very luxurious fashion, and 
occupied a very fine set of rooms at Desseins Hotel, said 
that Arthy was a cousin of her husband, and showed us a 
cutting from the Times about the death of Mrs. Arthy, which 
had occurred in rather a tragic manner. One evening, 
when my father and I were in her salon, she said to Arthy : — 

" I wish you would give one of your lockets to that little 
boy, as a keepsake from me." Arthy thereupon took off 
his watch-chain, and, after hunting amongst his innumerable 
lockets, at length chose one, which he unfastened, saying : — 

" Here is a nice gold locket that will do. Will you give 
him your photo to put inside it ? " 

" I haven't got one," replied Mrs. Winsloe. " Give him 
one of yours instead." So he cut round one of his photos 
and, inserting it in the locket, handed it to me. " Now 
kiss Mrs. Winsloe," said he, " for it is her present to you." 
I kissed the paint off her face, and she kissed me, and I felt 
sure that she left a coloured impression on my face. But 
I was so pleased with the locket, which I attached to my chain, 
that I did not care in the least. 

Arthy drank champagne with Mrs. Winsloe, and the latter 
seemed rather infatuated with him, which was not surprising, 
as he was a fine-looking man, though his baldness detracted 
from his good looks. However, the lady could not afford 
to be very difficile, being only an artificial beauty, whose 
youth was but a memory. Formerly, she had had beau- 
tiful hair, and it still reached to her waist. My father 
complimented her upon it, observing : — 

35 3* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" I never saw such lovely hair in my life, or such a 
perfect colour." 

She looked pleased, and replied, smiling : — 

" Yes, I don't think there are many women who have 
such fine hair." 

" No, I am sure there are not," remarked Arthy, who 
appeared to be thinking of the gold locket which he had 
given away, for he looked at his chain as he spoke. 

" He doesn't half admire you," said my father, laughing. 

" I am sure I do; I think my cousin the loveliest woman 
possible," replied the other, who appeared annoyed at my 
father's remark. 

Mrs. Winsloe looked at Arthy and smiled, being evidently 
under the impression that he was jealous, as he appeared 
angry with my father. 

The fact was that Arthy was anxious to ingratiate himself 
with Mrs. Winsloe. as she was very wealthy. Accordingly, 
he pretended to admire her, though it needed only half a 
glance to see that in reality he considered her very far from 
beautiful. Mrs. Winsloe not only paid for her own rooms 
at the h6tel, but all the expensive dinners which she and 
Arthy had together were entered to her account. The latter 
had a great partiality for naval officers, and as an American 
warship, the Alabama, of the Confederate Navy, happened 
to be lying at Calais at this time, he invited some of the 
officers to dine with him and Mrs. Winsloe. They accepted, 
and were most sumptuously entertained, champagne flowing 
like water. 

After staying six weeks with his cousin, Arthy left for 
England. Soon afterwards, the officers of a British warship 
at Portsmouth received an invitation from the Duke of St. 
Albans to dine with him at an hotel. The captain of the 
ship happened to be away, and, on his return, the other 
officers told him what a good dinner he had missed and loudly 
praised the ducal hospitality. 

" The Duke of St. Albans ! " exclaimed the captain, in 
astonishment. " How can you possibly have dined with him 
that evening ? Why, the very same day I was shooting 

36 



Boulogne 

quite near the duke's property, and I happened to see him ! 
I will go to the hotel and find out who it can be." 

The captain lost no time in instituting inquiries, with the 
result that the supposed duke was laid by the heels just as he 
was preparing to leave Portsmouth, and turned out to be 
none other than the man who had passed as Captain Arthy 
at Calais. It was subsequently ascertained that he was a 
certain Comte d'Aubigny, a member of a very old and 
noble French family, and that he had deceived several 
people in the same way. My father, on hearing of this, 
remarked : — 

"It is the first time that I have been taken in by a 
man, but I am glad I am not the only one he deceived." 

The enterprising gentleman was afterwards brought to 
trial and sentenced to seven years' penal servitude. 

My parents sometimes spent the summer months at Bou- 
logne, one year taking a large house at some little distance 
from the sea, overlooking a public garden. The late Captain 
Elwes, a nephew of the Duchess of Wellington, who was 
Vice-Consul at Boulogne, was a friend of my parents. He 
was devoted to painting, and, many years later, painted a 
miniature of an American lady for his cousin, the Marquis 
of Anglesey. It was beautifully painted, but, unfortunately, 
when it was finished, the Marquis had fallen in love with 
another Transatlantic belle, so he did not appreciate the 
miniature quite as much as he might have done, if his affec- 
tions had not been diverted from the original. Elwes hoped 
to be appointed Consul at Boulogne, but whether he ever 
obtained that post, I cannot say. The last time I met him 
was in Paris, many years later, at a dinner given by the 
Marquis of Anglesey, at the Hotel d'Albe, in the Champs 
Elysees. 

Lord Henry Paget, afterwards Marquis of Anglesey, was 
very fond of Boulogne, and lived there with his first wife. 
The latter died at Boulogne, quite suddenly, but the Marquis 
continued to visit the place, and my father saw a good deal 
of him. 
George Lawrence, the author of " Guy Livingstone/' son 

37 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

of Lady Emily Lawrence, was frequently at Boulogne, and 
often with my parents. I can remember my father relating 
how one day he went with him to see one of the lovely 
daughters of the Baron de Taintegnies off to Paris, and how 
Lawrence was so infatuated with the young lady, that he 
jumped into the train, without any luggage, merely to have 
the pleasure of travelling with her all the way to Paris, a 
journey of about five hours. On reaching Paris, he saw Mile. 
de Taintegnies safely to her destination, and then took the 
train back to Boulogne. 

My parents were particularly fond of Lawrence, who was 
good-humoured, clever, and very amusing. I heard that he 
had a quarrel with Tom Hohler, who married the Duchess of 
Newcastle, on account of having introduced him into one of 
his novels, called " Breaking a Butterfly." Hohler was very 
friendly with my father in later years in Paris. We had a 
white Pomeranian dog, and Tom Hohler asked my father to 
show it to the Duke of Newcastle, who was then a child, 
living with his mother in the Avenue d'Antin. The dog 
took such a fancy to the young Duke that it forsook us for 
him entirely. I heard recently from the Duke of Newcastle, 
who was kind enough to be interested in this book, that 
he remembered this Pomeranian dog quite well, and told me 
its name — " Loulou " — which I had entirely forgotten. 
The name recalled many things to my recollection. It is 
strange how at times we forget a name, and then, when it is 
mentioned, associations and incidents connected with it 
are suddenly recalled to our memory and flash before us as in 
a dream. 

Tom Hohler sang for a time at Her Majesty's Theatre. 
I never heard him sing in operas, but I have been told that he 
had a very pleasing voice, though it was not a very powerful 
one. It was said that when he sang in private houses, he 
was paid £40 for every song. 

Harry Slade, a son of Sir Frederick Slade, stayed for a time 
at Boulogne with his mother, of whom we saw a good deal ; 
and, after Lady Slade' s death, her son stayed for a long 
time at the Hotel du Nord, where my father and I 

-^8 



Boulogne 

often went to see him. He was a good talker and always 
very entertaining. 

Mrs. Joe Riggs, an American lady, who afterwards became 
Princess Ruspoli, was extremely fond of Boulogne, and 
generally spent the summer at the Hotel Imperial ; but this 
was in later years. 



39 



CHAPTER IV 

A Painting by Romney — Hunter's School at Kineton — Corporal Punishment 
A Sporting Parson — My School-fellows at Kineton — The Warre-Malets — 
Lord Charleville. 

BEFORE going to school in England, I was taken to 
Richmond to see my mother's aunt, Lady Caroline 
Murray, who was now an old lady and lived in a house near 
the Thames, for, as the Duchess of Gloucester, to whom she 
had been lady-in-waiting, had been dead some years, she 
was no longer at Court. In her younger days, Lady Caroline 
had been a good horsewoman and had ridden very well to 
hounds. But, at this time, she was leading a very quiet 
life, receiving only her relatives and friends. 

I can remember that in Lady Caroline's drawing-room at 
Richmond there was a most beautiful picture of her mother, 
Viscountess Stormont, British Ambassadress to France and 
Austria, painted by Romney. It represented the Countess 
in her own right, as she afterwards became, sitting beneath a 
large tree and wearing a kind of loose peignoir of a pale yellow 
colour, like the colour of the sea just before a storm. The 
peignoir was fastened at the shoulder by a brooch, in which 
was a large yellow stone. Her hair was dressed high above 
the head, in the style of Marie Antoinette, in whose days her 
husband was Ambassador in France, and over it she had a 
Scottish plaid of the clan to which she belonged. One leg 
was crossed over the other, and her arms were folded. She 
was painted in profile ; her peignoir, open at the front, dis- 
playing a perfect bosom and a beautiful, swan-like neck. 
Her hair possessed that glorious auburn tint with shades of 
gold in it, which made it appear as though the sun were 
shedding its full rays upon the gold tresses, one of which had 

40 




The Author's Mother. 



I'fo face p. JO. 



A Painting by Romney 

escaped from the rest and hung loose. Her face was of a 
tender oval, with expressive eyes of a peculiar shade of 
green, like that of the sea when the sun falls upon it, or as it 
is in Bocklin's pictures. Her nose was straight and delicate, 
with nostrils like those of a Greek statue. Her mouth was 
unusually small, with a tiny upper lip, slightly curved ; her 
chin short and classical. The expression on the face was of 
pride, of audacity, of childish innocence, of sentimentality, 
and it possessed a marvellous charm, and attraction. 

This beautiful portrait, which Lady Caroline bequeathed to 
Earl Cathcart, as he was the head of her mother's family, 
was once seen by a wealthy American, who said to the Earl, 
into whose possession it had then come : — 

" Have you ever seen such a lovely woman as this in all 
your life ? " 

" No, I have not," the Earl answered. 

" Well, I guess you haven't," rejoined the other, " and I 
don't think there ever was such a lovely woman on earth." 

And he offered Lord Cathcart £20,000 down for the 
picture, which the latter, though not a rich man, refused. 
The American then promised the Earl's son. Viscount 
Greenock, £500, if he could persuade his father to accept the 
offer I but it was all of no avail. 

I showed Mr. Noseda, the well-known print-seller in the 
Strand, the engraving of this picture by J. R. Smith, which 
had belonged to my grandfather, when Mr. Noseda told me 
that he very much preferred the engraving to the painting, 
as the latter had been so much touched up, whereas the former 
was so beautifully executed in every detail that he considered 
it finer than Romney' s portrait. This was after I had told 
him about the offer of £20,000 which the American had made 
for the original painting. 

Viscountess Stormont had been Ranger of Richmond Park, 
and was allotted, as her official residence, the house which is 
now the Queen's Hotel. An old gentleman whom I met at 
Richmond in later years told me that he thought the hotel 
ought to have been named after the Countess of Mansfield, 
as Lady Stormont became later, instead of being called the 

41 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" Queen's." He remembered Lady Caroline Murray, and 
remarked that she was one of those ladies of the old nobility 
who were scarce nowadays. 

Viscount Greenock afterwards became Earl Cathcart, and 
died in London in 1911. He was at Eton with me, and 
afterwards joined the 23rd Welsh Fusiliers, from which he 
was transferred to the Scots Guards. When at Eton, he 
often came to my tutor's house to see his cousin, Charles 
Douglas, whose father had placed him there to be with me. 
The Hon. Reginald Cathcart, a younger brother of Lord 
Cathcart, was in the 60th Rifles, and I recollect giving him a 
letter to his colonel, Godfrey Astell, in India,* when he first 
joined the regiment. Reginald Cathcart, who was a very 
nice young man, tall, dark, and handsome, was one of those 
unhappily killed in the Boer War. 

The school to which I was sent was at Kineton, near War- 
wick. It had been recommended to my father by Lady 
Caroline Murray, who had heard of it from the Duke of 
Buccleuch, and a cousin of mine, Greville Finch-Hatton, was 
being educated there. When my father and I arrived, we 
were shown into a sitting-room, looking out on to a garden, 
where we were received by Mrs. Hunter, the headmaster's 
wife. Mrs. Hunter was an old lady, whose age, I afterwards 
ascertained, was about seventy. To guess it would have been a 
difficult task, so terribly made up was she. Everything about 
her was false : false teeth, false hair, and a false bust, giving 
her somewhat the appearance of a wax figure at Madame 
Tussaud's. She had, however, very pretty white hands, 
with pointed fingers. She was dressed in black satin, with a 
large gold brooch at her throat, and a long gold chain round 
her neck, a costume which she always wore. 

* Godfrey Astell told me a rather amusing story about himself when I 
was in the regiment with him. He had been invited to shoot over a large 
estate in Scotland, and one of the gamekeepers looked particularly well after 
him all day, pointing out where the best beats and coverts were, and exclaiming 
every time a pheasant rose : " Godfrey, now's your chance ! " It subse- 
quently transpired that the man, on hearing Astell called Godfrey by his 
friends, was under the impression that this was some high title he possessed, 
having no idea that it was only his Christian name. 

42 



Hunter's School at Kineton 

" This, I presume, is your little son, whom you are leaving 
with us ? " said Mrs. Hunter to my father. " Will you tell 
me whether you belong to the High or Low Church, as it is 
my province to look after the boys' religious instruction, and 
I am always interested to know." 

The question was rather a poser for my father, who, I do 
not think, had entered a church since he left England. So 
he turned to me and said : — 

" Tell the lady to what church you go with your mother." 

I said that at Ostend I always went to the English Protes- 
tant Church. Upon which Mrs. Hunter observed : — 

" I see, you have been living on the Continent, and foreigners 
have very little religion. However, I will take care that your 
son has the proper religious instruction." 

Suddenly, the door opened, and an immensely stout man, 
of about sixty-five, with mutton-chop whiskers and spectacles, 
entered the room, and introduced himself as Mr. Hunter, 
the headmaster. 

In his youth Mr. Hunter had probably been an exceedingly 
handsome man, and was still, apart from his corpulence, 
decidedly good-looking, with a fine forehead, a small mouth 
with thin lips and very good teeth, and regular features. 

After showing us over the school, Mr. Hunter sent for 
Greville Finch-Hatton, telling my father that I should 
occupy a dormitory with my cousin and two other boys. 
At eight o'clock, supper was served in a large dining-room, 
where the presence of a new boy provoked a good deal of 
talking amongst the other boys. Mrs. Hunter sat at one end 
of the table, her husband at the other ; and the meal was 
a cold one, carved on the table, and consisting of cold meat, 
followed by bread and cheese, washed down by draught beer. 

As soon as supper was over, we were sent to our dormitories, 
where I had not been long in bed when my cousin leant over 
from his and asked if I were asleep. On finding that I was 
awake, he told me that we must talk in a very low voice, 
as talking was forbidden, and Mrs. Hunter occasionally paid 
us a visit to see whether this regulation was being observed. 
The two other boys in the room also began talking in low 

43 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

tones. Later on, when they considered themselves pretty 
safe from detection, they talked louder and carried on a 
long conversation about cricket, discussing who were the 
best bowlers in the school and whether fast bowling was 
more effective than slow. 

I could not sleep, and, for some unaccountable reason, 
felt very miserable. At last I began to cry, at first quietly, 
but soon I was unable to restrain my sobs. My cousin, 
hearing me, tried to console me, saying that he, too, had 
found it hard to leave his parents at first. I felt inclined 
to tell him that it was not that which made me cry, but I 
thought better of it. Soon afterwards I fell asleep, and 
dreamed that I was at Kirchhofer's school at Frankfurt, 
and that Vogelsang was talking to me. I even fancied that 
he kissed me, when I awoke suddenly, in despair at finding 
where I was. 

Mr. Hunter was a very pleasant man, when he cared to 
be, which was by no means always the case. He was most 
severe with everyone, and had no particular favourites. 
Some boys he disliked, particularly those who did not learn 
quickly, and those who were inclined to be noisy. He was 
full of fun when he played football with us ; making jokes 
and chaffing different boys in turn. He was, however, 
quite a different kind of man in school from what he was 
in the playground. 

On Sundays, we, of course, attended church. The clergy- 
man who preached, a Mr. Miller, had two voices : a very 
squeaky voice and a very gruff one. When he preached 
in his squeaky voice, most of us would fall asleep in the 
high pews, which screened us from the observation of the 
headmaster ; but when Mr. Miller altered his tone, and his 
deep, gruff voice was suddenly heard, coming, as it were, 
out of a vault, we would be disagreeably startled from our 
slumbers. The sermons, I am inclined to believe, were 
bought ones, for Mr. Miller used sometimes to lose his place 
in the midst of his discourse and come to a stop, and when 
he continued, it was on quite a different subject. But 
it mattered little, so far as we were concerned, for most 

44 



Corporal Punishment 

of the boys were usually asleep, and those who tried to 
listen could not follow the squeaky voice of the preacher — 
which had all the disagreeable sounds of a clarionet played 
badly — even by straining their ears, which few of them 
were disposed to do. 

Our French master, who was obliged to accompany us, 
used sometimes to unfold the Paris Figdro at full length 
and read it during the sermon. Mr. Hunter, owing to the 
height of the pews, could not, of course, see him, or he would 
most certainly have taken very strong exception to such 
an irregular proceeding. One Sunday, when Monsieur 
happened to have forgotten his Figaro, he passed the 
time of the sermon in an animated conversation with Rush, 
the captain of the Eleven. Unfortunately for the latter, 
Mr. Hunter happened to detect them ; and, after church, 
he sent for Rush, and, refusing to listen to his appeals, took 
him to the schoolroom and, making him bend down, gave 
him a severe caning. 

When I first came to the school, I was chaffed about 
my pronunciation, and Rush said : — 

" If you pronounce Themistocles like you do, I wouldn't 
be in your shoes." Then he used to ask me questions about 
my German school, which at first he laughed at. Soon, 
however, he took a great interest in it, making me tell him 
about the boys there, what they were like and what they did. 

" It must be very much jollier than here," said he, " and 
none of that beastly caning and flogging, as there is at 
Kineton." 

Mr. Hunter was certainly a devout believer in the precept : 
" Spare the rod, and spoil the child ; " indeed, he seemed 
to have a perfect passion for caning the boys, and at times 
performed this operation with astonishing zest. Some- 
times, of an evening, in my dormitory, we would play at 
being Mr. Hunter, each of us taking it in turns to personate 
the master and beat the other boys with a hairbrush, in place 
of a cane. One night, one of us happened to remark :— 

" I think it is a pleasure that would grow upon one, as it 
evidently does upon old Hunter." 

45 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Scarcely had he said this, when, to our consternation, 
the door suddenly opened, and the master appeared. The 
boys bolted into bed as fast as they could, but it was too 
late, and we were told to come to Mr. Hunter's study after 
prayers the following morning. There, after we had been 
duly admonished, we were all severely caned. 

Rush and other boys used to put hairs in the canes to 
split them ; but Mr. Hunter found this out, for one day, he 
broke six canes one after another. He then rang for his 
whalebone whip, and we received a fearful thrashing, with 
no time to prepare for it by padding our clothes with books. 

One day, the Duchess of Marlborough, who was a friend 
of Lady Caroline Murray, called, and asked to see my cousin 
and myself. She was accompanied by her son. Lord Ran- 
dolph Churchill, and her visit to the school was due to the 
fact that she thought of placing him there. But Lord 
Randolph became too ill to go to school just then, and had 
a private tutor at home instead, until he was old enough to 
be sent to Eton.* 

We often went for picnics to the charming woods of 
Compton Verney, belonging to Lady Willoughby de Broke. 
That lady, who was always very pleasant and full of fun, 
would sometimes come and talk to us and to Mr. Hunter. 
The latter had formerly been private tutor to her eldest 
son, and the school was on Lord Willoughby de Broke' s pro- 
perty.f The late Hon. Rainald Verney, Lord Willoughby's 
younger brother, was at school at Hunter's, before going to 
Eton, and often came to the school when I was there, before 
he joined the 52nd Light Infantry. 

* I had a letter before the war from Mr. Winston Churchill, Lord Randolph's 
son, in answer to one in which I had told him that, in certain respects, he 
reminded me of Mirabeau, and that I was convinced that he would become 
Prime Minister before very long. 

■j" I heard from Lord Willoughby de Broke, the son of the one mentioned 
here, some years ago. He was then en route for the Caucasus, and he 
told me that he had read my book on Paris and Vienna with pleasure and 
interest, though he was not aware at the time by whom it was written. He 
is one of the most energetic members of the House of Lords, and it is to be 
hoped that he will do everything in his power to recover for it its lost prestige. 

46 



A Sporting Parson 

Mr. Hunter had a young and rather pretty niece, a girl 
of eighteen, with black hair, who stayed for a time with him. 
She used to go into the boys' dormitories at night, when 
she would give them bonbons and generally kiss them. 
But her stay at Kineton was so short that her presence there 
was more like an angel's visit than anything else. 

One day, the Rev. William and Mrs. Finch-Hatton called 
to see their son and also asked to see me. Mrs. Finch-Hatton, 
who was at that time known as the " Rose of Kent," was a 
lovely woman, with very black hair and regular features. 
She was a sister of Sir Percy Oxenden. She told me that 
both she and her husband were struck by my great resem- 
blance to their son Greville ; and Mr. Finch-Hatton very 
kindly gave me half a sovereign, which I never forgot, as 
I rarely received any money from anyone. Mr. Newen- 
ham, who had married a daughter of the Earl of Mount 
Cashell, and was a clergyman in Ireland, also came to see 
his son. He played football with us, and afterwards told 
us the following story : — 

" I was once asked to see an old woman in Cork who 
was dying. She asked me to read the Bible to her, but as 
I was unprepared to find her so ill, I had not brought one 
with me, nor had she one in the house. So I pulled out a 
copy of Bell's Life which I happened to have in my 
pocket, and read her an article from it, which, as she hap- 
pened to be deaf, had precisely the same effect upon her 
as the Bible would have had." 

Mr, Newenham was a regular sporting parson, with, how- 
ever, a good deal more of the sportsman than the parson 
about him, but full of fun and very agreeable. 

There was a boy named Charles Taylor at the school, 
who afterwards went to Eton. His father, who had him- 
self been at Eton, was a famous cricketer and had played 
in the All-England Eleven. He was, however, somewhat 
eccentric, having the most intense dislike of being asked 
his age ; in fact, when one put this question to him, he 
invariably answered that he neither knew it nor wished to 
know it. He had also a strong objection to anything of 

47 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

a violet colour, and if a person called to see him wearing a 
tie or a dress of that colour, he always picked a quarrel with 
his unfortunate visitor. 

Another boy at Kineton, whom I shall call L , had 

the misfortune to be afflicted with kleptomania, and would 
take everything he could lay his hands on. Mr. Hunter 
used to break so many canes upon his back that he said 
to him one day : — 

" I shall send the bill for all the canes I have broken in 
trying to correct you to your mother, for you get worse 
and worse every day." 

The school colours were scarlet and white, but they were 
only worn by the cricket Eleven. As I was in the Eleven, 
I had this coveted privilege. My cousin did not much care 
for cricket, and was fonder of riding and shooting, at both 
of which he excelled. Mr. Hunter kept a pony for the boys 
to ride. When he drove to Warwick, Leamington or Banbury, 
he would take two of us with him, one boy riding the pony, 
while the other sat in the pony-trap with the master. I can 
remember once riding to Warwick and then to Stratford-on- 
Avon on the pony, which Finch-Hatton rode back to Kineton. 
Most of the boys could ride well, and those who could not 
were never taken by Mr. Hunter, save on one occasion, when 
I recollect that the boy he took with him reminded me of 
certain Frenchmen whom one sees riding in the Bois de 
Boulogne, who are afraid to let their horses go beyond a walk. 
As my father used to say in Paris : — 

" They praise the Lord on their knees every time they 
come home safely and are out of the saddle." 

Greville Finch-Hatton was rather delicate, and, after 
making a voyage to Australia, died quite young. 

Aubrey Birch Reynardson, who also slept in my dormitory, 
had a gift for story-telling. One night he related to us the 
story of " Eric, or Little by Little," with which, I can re- 
member, we were delighted. 

Mr. Hunter always wore spectacles. At times, by gas- 
light, when the gas fell upon them, it looked as if his eyes 
were two flames, and that he was an ogre ready to devour 

48 



My School-fellows at Kineton 

one of us, particularly when he took up his cane, and glared 
at the culprit, through his spectacles, with fiery eyes. But, 
taken on the whole, Mr. Hunter was a very good fellow, 
who would never have done anyone an injury, apart from 
perhaps giving him a dose of the cane. 

Among the boys who were at Hunter's with me was Charles 
Home-Purves, who was the head of the school. He after- 
wards went to Eton and took Lower School instead of 
Fourth Form, at which Mr. Hunter was much disappointed. 
His father. Colonel Home-Purves, was in attendance on the 
Duchess of Cambridge, and was accidentally killed by the 
overturning of a carriage in which he was driving with Her 
Royal Highness. He was so terribly cut about the face 
by the glass of the carriage-window that he died almost 
immediately. His son was offered a commission in the 
Guards, but preferred entering the Rifle Brigade. However, 
he left the regiment shortly afterwards, and died when 
very young. 

The late Earl of Lonsdale, before he succeeded his uncle 
in the title, was also at Kineton with me. On one occasion, 
he ordered a lot of toys from Cremer's toy-shop, but when 
they arrived, Mr. Hunter was so startled at the bill, which 
amounted to a considerable sum, that he had them at once 
sent back to where they came from, telling Lowther, as he 
was then, that he must make a better use of his money. He 
found life at Hunter's too restricted and not lively enough 
for him, so he only remained one half, and then asked to 
leave the school. I met him at Eton with his brother, the 
present Earl of Lonsdale. The latter was attached to the 
Rifle Brigade, and was a very keen sportsman, I remember, 
when we were both stationed at Winchester. 

One day, at Kineton, I was playing with Newenham, M^ho 
happened to have a pocket-knife open in his hand, and, by 
accident, I got a very ugly stab in the back. ' Indeed, the 
doctor declared that, if the wound had been one-eighth of an 
inch deeper, it would have been fatal. Newenham was once 
mistaken for me by an uncle of mine at the Great Western 
Hotel, Paddington, which amused both of them very much, 

49 4 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

particularly as I was then at the same school as Newenham. 
He retired from the Army with the rank of Major, and lives 
in County Kerry, for which he is a magistrate. 

Once, on the anniversary of Shakespeare's birth,* Mr. 
Hunter took us to Stratford- on- Avon, to show us the house 
where the poet was born and to visit the theatre. Mr. 
Hunter was a good amateur actor, and would sometimes 
get up plays for us to act. On one occasion, we played 
" A Midsummer Night's Dream." Lady Willoughby de Broke, 
Lord and Lady North, Sir Charles Mordaunt, and all the 
neighbouring county families were invited to the performance, 
which went off fairly well. " Making up " afforded us great 
amusement. One of the boys had learned this art from his 
sister, and proved himself quite an adept at darkening the 
others' eyebrows and rouging their cheeks and lips. 

I happened to meet recently the Rev. Henry Knightley, 
brother of Sir Charles Knightley. He had been at Kineton 
with me, but it was forty years since we had met. From 
him I learned that Mr. Hunter had died at Leamington 
after giving up his school, and that Rush had died quite early 
in life, as well as 'several others who were there with us. It 
was quite a pleasure for me, and, I think, also for him, 
to recall our school-days, and even the canings I looked back 
upon with some regret, feeling that I would willingly submit 
to them again, could I but return to those times. We both 
agreed that we had not learned much at Kineton, but that, 
on the whole, our life there with our schoolfellows had been 



*Grillparzer says that it has often struck him that Shakespeare took some 
of his ideas from Lope de Vega's plays. Shakespeare's Miranda, he says, 
could be compared with the character it resembles in Los tres diamantes, 
and the love-scenes in the latter are quite on a par with those in " Romeo and 
Juliet." The plot of i' The Merry Wives of Windsor" is similar to that of 
Los ferias de Madrid. As for Los pleitos de Inglaterra, he regards this play 
as incomparable, and the love-scenes in " Romeo and Juliet" appear almost 
to pale in comparison. " I wish," he continues, " Lessing had known 
Calderon and Lope de Vega. He would perhaps have found that there was 
more connection with the German esprit than in the far too gigantic Shake- 
speare. Perhaps " Macbeth" is Shakespeare's greatest work : it is without 
doubt the most realistic." 

50 




IC. D. Williamson, at Eton with the Author. 



\_To/<xce p. 50, 




Miss Mabel Warre-Malet. 



iTo/acep. 51. 



The Warre-Malets 

a pleasant one. I found that Knightley was under the 
impression that Greville Finch-Hatton had inherited the 
title of Winchilsea, but I told him that my cousin was dead, 
and that the present Earl of Winchilsea and Nottingham 
had been at Eton with me, and was kind enough to interest 
himself in my book about our school life. 

The chief prize I got at this school was a copy of Long- 
fellow's poems, beautifully bound and illustrated. I was i 
very pleased at receiving it, as Longfellow was at that time j 
my favourite lyrical poet in the English language. 

Most of the boys remained at Kineton until they were 
fourteen, when they left for Harrow, Eton, Winchester, or 
some other public school. Greville Finch-Hatton went to 
Wellington, Rush to Cheltenham, and Knightley to Marl- 
borough. 

During my holidays, I sometimes went to Taunton, to 
stay with an aunt of mine, whose husband, a very kind man, 
was extremely fond of me. His daughter's chief friends 
were some children of the name of Warre-Malet, nieces of 
the Ambassador, Sir Alexander Warre-Malet. The eldest 
girl, Mabel, who was about thirteen, the same age as myself, 
was very pretty, with brown hair, a lovely complexion and 
eyes of a deep blue. One Christmas Eve, Mrs. Warre-Malet 
had a large Christmas tree, with numerous presents attached 
to its branches, and we were invited to her house. Every 
one of the children received a beautiful present from the 
tree, which was illuminated by a great number of candles. 
Afterwards we played at forfeits, and I was told to kiss Mabel 
Warre-Malet as a forfeit, an act which I felt very shy about 
performing. " Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait." 
Another friend of ours was a girl whose name was Amy ; 
who was also about thirteen. She, too, was a very attractive 
little lady, with long brown hair, hazel eyes with black lashes, 
an oval face, and a small mouth with pearly white teeth. 
She had a cousin, the Earl of Charleville, some years older 
than herself, who was staying at that time with her people. 
One day she came with him to see my cousins, and said to 
me ; 

51 4* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" Charleville can tell you all about Eton, if you want 
to know anything, as he went to school there." 

Lord Charleville had to go away before his companion, 
who remained to tea. Afterwards, one of my cousins and I 
accompanied her part of the way home, and, while we were 
crossing some fields, she suddenly exclaimed : — 

" Good gracious ! my petticoat is coming down ! " 

And she burst out laughing. 

My cousin Florence, a girl of thirteen, told me to walk on, 
while she pinned up Amy's petticoat. But this proved a 
more difficult task than she had bargained for, as a string 
fastening had been broken, and it ended in Amy being 
obliged to take her petticoat off and carry it as a parcel. 
The two girls laughed consumedly at this mishap and its 
victim said to me : — 

" Don't you tell anyone that you saw me take my petti- 
coat off, or I will never forgive you." 

I assured her that on no consideration would I breathe 
so much as a syllable, and, on leaving us, she said : — 

" As you are going away, you may give me a kiss, if you 
like." 

Which I did right gladly, as you may suppose. 

A few days later, I met Charleville at an evening party 
in Taunton, at which he paid marked attention to the daughter 
of the house, a very pretty girl. I recollect meeting at this 
party two of the daughters of the vicar of Taunton, Elsie 
and Audrey Clark, the elder of whom was thirteen, while her 
sister was three years younger, and was much struck by 
their beauty, which was quite out of the common. One of 
them had the most lovely hair, of the same exquisite colour 
as that which one sees in Titian's paintings ; the other's hair 
was also very beautiful, but of a more auburn shade ; and 
both sisters had the most charming complexion. I danced 
repeatedly with one of them ; mais mon cceur halangait entre 
les deux, so far as their attractions were concerned. The 
girl with the Titian hair afterwards married the fourteenth 
Lord Petre, while her sister married his uncle. 

Lord Charleville was a tall, good-looking youth, with 

52 



Lord Gharleville 

wavy brown hair and regular features, but he was very- 
delicate, being consumptive. After serving for a year in the 
Rifle Brigade, his health obliged him to resign his com- 
mission. He then went for a voyage in his yacht, but derived 
little benefit from it, and died before reaching his majority. 
The late Mrs. O. Warre-Malet told me that, when she was 
quite a young girl, she and her sister went to Ascot races 
on foot and disguised as boys for a joke, and that they 
got a good deal of money from people who were driving to the 
course. Her sister married the Hon. Humble Dudley- Ward, 
and after her husband's death, the late Duke of Richmond 
made her an offer of marriage. This she refused, but accepted 
Mr. Gerard Leigh, who was an immensely wealthy man. 
After his death she became the wife of Monsieur de Falbe, 
and died some years ago. 



53 



CHAPTER V 

My Mother's Recollections — The Cercle des Patineurs — Patti — 
Our Appartement in the Rue d'Albe 

MY parents were at this time living in Paris, in a 
small hotel in the Avenue d'Antin, which was 
so shut in by the houses that surrounded it, that the rooms 
were very dark, and, as it was winter, this made the house 
seem more gloomy than it would have done at another 
season of the year. 

I was quite enchanted with Paris ; everything about it 
delighted me, so different was it from any city I had ever 
seen. The only thing that displeased me was the h6tel 
in which we lived. Not only was it gloomy, but nothing 
could be seen from the windows, except a kind of courtyard, 
resembling a patio in Spain. This courtyard was filled 
with flowers, very prettily arranged ; nevertheless, it was 
depressing to be unable to see anything else when you looked 
out of the window. 

I remember being taken to a box at the Theatre 
des Italiens to hear Adelina Patti, in La Gazza ladra, by 
Rossini. It was the first time that I had heard her sing, 
and I was, of course, delighted with her voice ; but my 
mother was disappointed, and I recall what she said at the 
time : — 

" After having heard Grisi, Malibran, and even Jenny 
Lind, I do not think Patti is to be compared with them, 
neither so far as her voice is concerned, nor as an actress. 
She reminds me at times of Jenny Lind, yet I prefer the 
latter infinitely." 

My mother always had her own box at Her Majesty's in 

54 



My Mother's Recollections 

the days when Grisi, Lablache, Malibran, and the dancers 
Taglioni, Fanny Elssler and Cerrito were enchanting the 
audience. One evening, during the visit of the Tsar 
Nicholas I. of Russia to England, my mother was invited 
by the Duke of Sussex and Mile. d'Este to a box at the 
Opera facing that which the Tsar and Queen Victoria 
occupied. The Duke of Sussex paid £500 for this box. 

My mother told me that the two finest sights she ever 
beheld in her life were the Coronation of Queen Victoria, 
when the peeresses all put on their coronets, sparkling with 
diamonds, emeralds and rubies, at the moment Her Majesty 
was crowned in Westminster Abbey ; and at the Queen's 
accession, when hundreds of schoolchildren, dressed in white 
and light blue, knelt down and recited the Lord's Prayer 
by St. Paul's, after which the Benediction was pronounced 
by the Archbishop of Canterbury. 

My mother often met Disraeli in London society ; and 
she told me that, in his youth, he always wore several 
diamond rings over his white kid gloves, and that she thought 
him a most affected and conceited young man. The two 
Greek countesses described in " Lothair " were the Countesses 
Zancarol. One married Colonel Lemesurier, of the Royal 
Horse Artillery ; the other Major Geary, R.A. The latter 
married couple often dined with us in Paris, where Mrs. 
Geary was considered a great beauty. Major Geary and his 
brother, Sir Henry Le Quay Geary, K.C.B., were lifelong 
friends of my parents. 

My maternal grandfather, Lieut. -General the Hon. George 
Murray, to whom George III. and his Queen were god- 
father and godmother, commanded the 2nd Life Guards. 
For ten years he refused to accept his pay, on account of 
a quarrel which he had with the Duke of York. So far as 
I can recollect, the cause of the quarrel was as follows : — 

During the Peninsular War, an outward-bound troopship, 
having some troops on board commanded by my grand- 
father, and a great quantity of heavy luggage belonging 
to the Duke of York, encountered very bad weather, and 
was in danger of foundering. In order to lighten the vessel, 

55 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

the captain wanted to throw all the horses overboard. But 
this my grandfather would not allow, and proposed that the 
Duke's luggage should be sacrificed instead, which was 
accordingly done, to the intense indignation of His Royal 
Highness, when he heard of it afterwards. 

The statue to the Duke of York, erected in London, was 
reported to have been built so high in order to place him 
beyond the reach of his creditors, whose name was legion. 

My grandfather used to say that he never could under- 
stand how the Duchess of Sutherland, with her £365,000 
a year, could bring herself to stand the whole evening at 
the Opera behind the Prince Consort, who was only an 
insignificant German prince, with a tiny principality. His 
opinion of George IV. was that it would puzzle anyone who 
knew him to discover a good quality that he possessed. 

It was about this time, when my parents were living in 
the Avenue d'Antin, that I first saw Hortense Schneider 
in les Voyages de Gulliver, at the Chatelet Theatre, which 
all Paris rushed to see. The play was a charming one, 
and the children were particularly delighted when the Lili- 
putians, represented by tiny little wooden figures, moved 
about the stage. Hortense Schneider, of course, represented 
Gulliver, and sang some very pretty songs in the course of 
the play. 

The late Arthur Post, a young American living with his 
family in Paris, fell desperately in love at this time with 
Hortense Schneider, though she was very much older than 
himself. He drove about the Bois with her, accompanied 
her to theatres, and, in fact, was always with her. His 
infatuation greatly distressed his parents, and was the 
subject of universal comment. However, he did not marry 
her, though that was not his fault, as Hortense Schneider 
had several royal and other princes ready to lay their fortunes 
at her feet ; and it was not until several years afterwards 
that she chose a very wealthy banker for her husband. 

Fioretti was then the premiere danseuse at the Grand 
Op^ra. Her dancing always gave me greater pleasure 
than anything else there. She was, besides, very beautiful, 

56 



The Cercle des Patineurs 

and King Ludwig II. of Bavaria was so captivated by her 
graceful dancing and personal attraction, that he induced 
her to leave Paris for Munich, to dance there instead. 

I went also to the Palais- Royal, and saw le Train de 
Minuit, a play in which a railway-carriage is by accident 
left behind in the middle of the night at a station, and the 
people awake and find themselves at some miserable little 
village, instead of in Paris, as they had expected. They, 
of course, cannot obtain what they require in the way of 
refreshments, and are nearly perishing with cold, as it is 
the depth of winter, and the carriage is no longer heated ; 
and the complications that ensue are very amusing. 

One day, I went with my parents to Saint-Germain, to 
visit Captain and Mrs. Lennox Berkeley, who were living 
there. Their son, Hastings, a good-looking boy, told us 
that his father was learning to play the zither, which Captain 
Berkeley showed us, though he could not be persuaded to 
let us hear him play it. Saint -Germain, with its charming 
woods and pretty walks, is delightful in summer, the country 
all around being lovely. When we returned to Paris, I did 
not give my father any peace until he had bought a zither 
for me. It was not easy to obtain one, and I remember 
that we wandered about half Paris, until at length we dis- 
covered what we wanted in the Rue de Rivoli. I had also 
great difficulty in finding a master, until finally I discovered 
a German who played the instrument very well. 

In the winter months, I went several times with my 
father to the Cercle des Patineurs. This was a very ex- 
clusive and very expensive resort, where, to secure 
admittance for yourself and family, you had to be a member 
of the Jockey Club, while each person had to pay twenty 
francs in the afternoon and forty francs in the morning and 
evening. There were some Americans who skated mar- 
vellously, amongst them being Mrs. Ronalds, who was a 
very fine skater. I was told that Napoleon III. and the 
Empress Eugenie admired her graceful skating so much 
that they complimented her on several occasions at the 
Cercle des Patineurs, and she became a frequent guest at 

57 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

the Tuileries. The Princess Metternich, the Austrian 
Ambassadress, was also an habituSe ; in fact, the place was 
patronized by all the beau monde of those days. 

I frequently went at that time to Musards' concerts, 
which on fine summer evenings were given out of doors, in a 
garden, and always enjoyed them immensely. Sometimes 
I went with my mother to meet friends there ; but when 
I went alone, I usually sat with the Pietris, near relatives of 
the Prefet de Police, who was so much attached to the 
Emperor and Empress. Their daughter, Julie, was a lovely 
girl of thirteen, and when I had learned to play the zither 
better, we often performed duets together, as she was a 
most accomplished pianist. I can remember we often 
played Schubert's Stdndchen, which sounded very well, as 
it is rather melancholy. Sad airs, in my opinion, are best 
suited to the zither, particularly when it is accompanied 
by the piano. When the German who was teaching me the 
zither left Paris, I took lessons from a Mile. Reichemberg, 
who, at that time, was also teaching Adelina Patti, and 
learned a Polish romance which the latter was very fond 
of playing. Patti became extremely fond of the zither, 
which she played a good deal in her leisure hours, though 
she never sang to it, I was told. 

Hofrath Hanslick, the late celebrated critic of the Austrian 
Neue Freie Presse, said of Patti : — 

" She appears to me to be most perfect in roles like 
Zerlina, in Don Juan, Norina, in Don Pasquale, Rosina, 
in the Barbiere di Seviglia. What a fresh, youthful voice, 
which in its range from the tenor C to F in alt, moves about 
with such wonderful ease ! The most perfect and delightful, 
though, were the lively roles of Patti, principally the one of 
Zerlina, in Don Juan. She gave us the true ideal of Zerlina. 
With these advantages, and especially, too, in the develop- 
ment of dazzling virtuosity, Patti shines as Rosina in Rossini's 
Barbiere, and as Norina in Donizetti's graceful opera, Don 
Pasquale. In the Barbiere one can judge best, perhaps, of 
her marvellous art in singing. Of her later roles, in Leonora, 
in Verdi's Trovatore, she attained almost the highest pitch. 

58 



Patti 

The Traviata, which is decidedly a far better opera, shows 
Patti to more advantage dramatically. I always disliked 
Dinorah, almost as much as I did formerly the Traviata, 
which I saw the first time badly performed. Two roles of 
Patti which I cannot praise as much as the two before- 
mentioned are Valentine, in the Huguenots, and Gretchen, 
in the Faust of Gounod. In the valse of Venzano, she 
sings a roulade of seventeen bars in one breath, smiling, as 
if it were child's play. There is no doubt that the Valentine 
of Pauline Lucca and the Marguerite of Christine Nilsson 
surpass the performance of Patti in these roles. A clever 
writer once called Italy the conservatoire of God. In this 
conservatoire Adelina Patti has without doubt taken away 
the first prize." 

One Sunday evening, I went with Captain Berkeley to see 
some fine illuminations in the Champs-Elysees. I recollect 
telling him how much I disliked a crowd, to which he 
replied : — 

"It is the only day on which the poor people can enjoy 
themselves, and they have as much rigkt to do so as the 
rich. I am always so delighted to see the poor creatures 
happy." One day, a beggar came up to him and asked 
for some coppers, upon which he said to him : — 

" Mon cher ami, cest dijendu de mendier, mais void un 
pane; ne le faites plus." 

I called one day with my father at an l\6tel in the Champs- 
Elysees. As the lady we had come to see happened to be 
out, we were asked to wait in a salon, where an English lady 
sat, reading. My father made some casual remark about 
its being fine weather to be out of doors, to which the lady 
answered that she had only just arrived in Paris and intended 
to have a rest. My father then said that he supposed she 
would go out the next day. 

" No," was the answer. " I told you, I have come here 
for a rest." 

He asked how long she intended resting, when she replied : 

"Six months." 

My father was so astonished at this reply that he was quite 

59 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

unable to refrain from laughing, which rather annoyed the 
lady. On our leaving the hotel soon afterwards, he said to 
me : 

" That old woman is mad with her rest, and to come to 
Paris, of all places, to have it. She must be out of her 
mind." 

I frequently went to the galleries of the Louvre and the 
Luxembourg, and always had a great liking for Greuze's 
paintings, particularly the Cruche Cassee and VAccordee 
du Village. The former I have often seen in engravings 
by Masard and other engravers, but no reproduction has 
ever come up to the beautiful face of the original. There 
is always quelque chose d dSsirer in the copies, and even 
in the photographs from the picture itself ; it is something 
in the expression, and not alone in the colouring. 

At the time of which I am speaking, there was a Spaniard 
in Paris, a friend of some acquaintances of ours, who built a 
large hotel and a theatre for himself attached to it. The 
former was heated to a certain temperature, and his doctor 
called upon him every day, receiving a napoleon for each 
visit, and on certain fete days a hundred francs. The 
doctor used merely to feel his patient's pulse, when he was 
not ill. This Spaniard had two lady friends, a brunette and 
a blonde, each of whom was in the habit of spending certain 
fixed days in the v/eek with him. Notwithstanding the very 
regular life he led, he did not attain the age of forty, but died 
of fever almost suddenly. He was an immensely wealthy 
man, but of a very nervous temperament. During the winter 
he never went out of doors, from fear of taking cold. 

Lord Lyons, who was then British Ambassador in Paris, 
was celebrated for two things particularly, apart from his 
diplomatic capabilities : his horses and the excellent dinners 
he gave. An old Englishman, of over seventy, with whom we 
were well acquainted, used to look forward to dining at the 
British Embassy for weeks in advance. But his wife said 
she positively dreaded his going there, as he was invariably 
laid up for a fortnight after partaking of one of these too- 
appetizing banquets. 

60 



Our Appartement in the Rue d'Albe 

In the following summer, my parents left the Avenue 
d'Antin and lived for a time in the Avenue Josephine, until 
an appartement which my mother had taken unfurnished in 
the Rue d'Albe, in the Champs-Elysees, had been got ready 
for us. I recollect she ordered the furniture from the cele- 
brated Maison Krieger, in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. 
The salon was furnished in Louis Quinze style, with some 
tiny chairs with gilt backs and the seats in satin with designs 
of various birds of gorgeous plumage in different colours, 
all worked in silk by hand. The sides of the fauteuils were of 
gilt, while the backs and the seats were all in Aubusson 
tapestry, representing roses on a white foundation. The 
sofa was in Aubusson to match the fauteuils, the curtains as 
well. The carpet, which covered the middle of the room 
only, as the floor was a parquet, was a lovely design with a 
white foundation, the edges of which and the centre repre- 
sented clusters of red and pink roses. The carpet was in 
Aubusson tapestry, and rather a small one, though my 
mother had paid 7,500 francs for it. Dr. Bishop, brother-in- 
law of the late Lord Iddesleigh, declared that the carpet was 
so lovely that he was really afraid to walk on it. He was a 
very tall, stout man, and he always sat on the delicate chairs 
in preference to the others. This made my mother feel 
very uneasy, less because she feared that the chair might get 
broken than because she was afraid that he might have a 
severe fall. The tables in the salon were Louis Quinze style, 
in marqueterie, all inlaid with tortoiseshell and mother-of- 
pearl in Boule style, and on the chimney-piece stood a clock 
and various figures and lamps in old Sevres porcelain. The 
walls were white, with gold decorations, and were adorned 
with numerous mirrors. I asked my mother to have my bed- 
room furnished in yellow and black satin, which she had done. 
I was extremely fond of the Austrian national colours, and, 
besides, they were the same as those of a room which I had 
occupied some little time before when on a visit to Mrs. 
Reynolds, formerly Miss Lethbridge, at Poundsford Park, 
near Taunton. 

As I was about to ^o to Eton, my mother was anxious that 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

I should have the correct Eton collar. No one in Paris 
knew what it was like, so Lady Caroline Murray sent her the 
pattern of a collar worn by one of the twin brothers Lambton, 
who were both then at Eton. The elder is now Earl of 
Durham. The Eton jacket was also a bit of a puzzle, and, 
though I had it made as near the correct thing as possible, 
I found, when I got to Eton, that, to be quite in the mode, I 
must get my jackets made by Manley, of Windsor. This I 
did all the time I was at Eton, as well as other clothes I wore 
there. 



62 





< 



H 



CHAPTER VI 

I go to Eton — New Boy Baiting — My House Master — Mr. James's " Jokes " — 
My Room at Eton — Some Eton Masters — A Disorderly Form — 
Lacaita's Silk Hat — " Billy " Portman 

THERE was a certain cachet attached to an Etonian in 
those days which I have not found with boys of any 
other school, assuredly not in England. I may almost say 
not in Europe, except, perhaps, with those of the Theresi- 
anum, in Vienna. I might almost repeat what the well- 
known German Socialist, Ferdinand Lassalle, wrote to a 
Russian lady, in comparing the German women of the 
middle class with those of the aristocracy, which latter 
class might stand for Etonians of those days in comparison 
with boys of other schools : " The women have not that 
aroma of amiability, that cachet of good manners, which is 
indispensable for every woman who has lived in aristocratic 
circles. There are certainly exceptions, but they are very 
rare." 

In the autumn of 1866 my father took me to Windsor, 
where we put up at the White Hart Hotel. Then we walked 
to Eton and entered the first master's house we came to, that 
of the Rev. C. C. James. It stood near the wall of a cemetery, 
which some of the rooms overlooked. My father informed the 
master that he had come to place me at the school, but really 
did not know one house from another, and that, if Mr. James 
would care to take me into his house, he would be very glad 
to leave me in his charge. Mr. James replied that it was un- 
usual for him to take a boy of whom he knew nothing, with- 
out having his name entered beforehand, or without some 
recommendation. But whether it was that my father con- 
trived to talk him over, or that he thought he would run the 
risk of my turning out a bad bargain, after Mr. James had 

63 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

asked my age and where I had been to school, it was decided 
that I should stay at his house. My father, I think, was the 
most pleased, for, from what Mr. James had said, he had 
been anticipating some difficulty in finding a house for me at 
all, as at certain masters' houses a boy's name had to be 
entered years beforehand. But my father generally trusted 
to chance in everything, and what seemed impossible to most 
people was for him often an easy matter. 

Mr. James showed us over the boys' rooms, and, though I 
should have much preferred having one looking out on Wind- 
sor, with a fine view of the Castle, I had to be content with 
the end room in the front of the house, which had a view of 
the college chapel, and was quite close to the cemetery. My 
father told him that he did not think I was afraid of ghosts, 
when Mr. James told him that the cemetery was of very 
ancient date, and no longer used for burial purposes. He 
then showed us the beds, which were closed up in the day- 
time, in such a way as to present the appearance of cup- 
boards, and said that he would get me a bureau similar to 
that which every boy had there. 

My father soon took his departure and went back to the 
" White Hart," upon which I was handed over to the house- 
keeper, who invited me to sit in her room, and gave me some 
tea. I remained there until the evening, when -some of the 
boys began to arrive. As might be expected, I was far from 
being at ease, and felt like someone entering on a new exist- 
ence, in a completely different world from the one in which 
he had lived. The housekeeper inquired whether I did not 
know some of the boys at James's, and told me their names. 
To which I replied that I did not know even one of them, 
though I knew some boys at other houses. At what houses 
they were, however, I could not say. She said that the boys 
I mentioned were higher in the school than I was likely to be 
placed, and that they would not condescend to speak to so 
humble a person as myself, and that I must make acquaint- 
ances of my own age, which I would soon do. 

I had not long to wait before some of the boys arrived, and 
presently came into the housekeeper's room. But I do not 

64 



New Boy Baiting 

recollect one of them speaking to me then, and shortly after- 
wards I set out for Windsor, as my father had got permission 
for me to dine with him at the " White Hart," before he left 
for London, on his way back to Paris. 

When I returned to James's alone, I went into the house- 
keeper's room, in which I found several boys, who regarded me 
with a curiosity which I found decidedly embarrassing. 
The first who spoke to me was a very nice-looking boy of 
sixteen, named Gaskell, who was in the Remove. He asked 
me my name, and whether I thought I should pass into the 
Fourth Form. I replied that I did not feel at all sure of doing 
so. At that moment another new boy, named Temple, 
with fair hair and a very plain face, entered the room, to whom 
Gaskell put the same questions as he had to me. Temple 
did not appear over-burdened by modesty, and had no doubt 
whatever about passing into the Fourth Form. 

" Of course I shall," he declared confidently, putting his 
hands in his trousers pockets and looking very important. 

Suddenly some other boys came in. 

" Here are some new fellows," said Gaskell. 

" What are they like ? " asked the others. " Let's have a 
look at them." 

" This chap here — Temple his name is — seems devilish 
confident about himself ; expects to get into the Fourth 
Form at once." 

" I say," exclaimed a fair, good-looking boy, who was 
bigger than Gaskell and taller, and whose name was John H. 
Locke, " so you expect to pass easily ? Where do you come 
from ? " 

" From London," replied Temple, colouring slightly. 

" From what school ? " 

" I was educated at home by a tutor." 

" Indeed ! Well, you give yourself airs of importance that 
won't do here, I can tell you. We'll soon knock them out of 

you." 

Temple put his hands in his trousers pockets and shrugged 
his shoulders, while his not very prepossessing countenance 
assumed an expression that was almost diabolical. 

65 5 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" You look like the devil," said Locke, laughing. 

" So he does," exclaimed some of the others ; and one boy- 
added : — 

" I say, Satan, what an ugly mug you have ! " 

Temple darted a glance of withering scorn at the speaker, 
but could not trust himself to reply. 

" That's a good name for him," remarked Locke. " Mug, 
I say, Mug, mind you pass your exam, well, and don't look so 
fiendish when one speaks to you, for it won't pay." 

Saying which he took his departure, leaving Temple to 
digest the advice he had given. 

The exam, came off in due course, when Temple failed to 
qualify for the Fourth Form, and was put into the Lower 
School ; while I passed into the Lower Fourth, which was 
more than I expected to do. All the boys at James's were 
pleased, for they had taken a great dislike to Temple. The 
latter, however, was not in the least disheartened at not 
taking the Fourth Form, but put his hands in his pockets, 
shrugged his shoulders, and looked at the other boys as 
contemptuously as before. He was at once given to Alex- 
ander, the Captain of the Oppidans, as a fag, while I was 
allotted to Locke. Alexander never spoke to Lower boys, 
except to fag them, so Temple had merely to do what he was 
told. I had a very easy time of it with Locke, who had 
other fags besides. Sometimes Locke would ask me to sit 
down in his room and talk to him, when he would often give 
me fruit and bonbons. He was about eighteen, in the Sixth 
Form, and rowed in the Monarch ; but C. R. Alexander was 
Captain of the House and Head of the School, or what is 
termed Captain of the Oppidans, to distinguish him from 
the Captain of the Collegers, nicknamed Tugs, who are boys 
on the foundation and obliged always to wear a gown. 

A boy named James Doyne, who became a great friend 
of mine, messed with me, that is to say, we took our break- 
fast and tea together in his room, as it was larger than mine. 
I often did his French lessons for him out of school, and 
helped him with others, as he was in the Lower School. 
Sometimes, he bought beefsteaks for breakfast, and I would 

66 



My House Master 

cook them downstairs while he was in school, as he was often 
kept behind by his master. So occasionally, when I happened 
to be very hungry, I would not only eat my own steak, but 
a part of his as well, which used to make him very angry. 

Doyne told me once that his father knew a gentleman who, 
on being introduced to another, said : — 

" You are the son of a tailor, I believe, are you not ? " 

" Yes," was the reply, " and I will take your measure." 

The tailor's son never rested until he had ruined the other. 

It seems a great pity that duelling is not allowed in England, 
as it would oblige some men in this country to mend their 
manners, even if the duel were restricted to the use of the 
epee alone, and were to cease at the first sign of blood. Any- 
way, it would be better than the senseless actions for libel, 
which cost a great deal of money, and are quite unknown in 
other civilized countries. 

I had very little to do with my tutor, Mr. James, being up 
to another master in school. He was a Mr. Luxmoore, a 
young, rather good-looking and very pleasant man. My 
tutor only took the Fifth Form pupils of his own division, but 
at times he would see how the boys in his house were pro- 
gressing in their studies. Mr. James was a rather tall and 
thin man, about thirty-seven, with a long, fair, almost reddish 
beard and no moustache. His eyes were blue, and he had a 
habit of looking away from people while he talked, and when 
he became nervous he used to stammer, but not very per- 
ceptibly. Although he could not be called handsome, 
he was by no means bad-looking, having a very pleasant 
expression and beautiful teeth. 

We had to be in school at 7 a.m. in the summer, and 
7.30 a.m. in the winter, and the lesson lasted an hour. Then 
we went back to our rooms for breakfast, or, rather, had to 
go to our fagmaster and cook his breakfast first. But 
Locke hardly ever required this service of me, as he generally 
made another of his fags do it for him. At 9.15 we all 
had to attend Chapel, which lasted half an hour. Then 
school again till 10.30, and from 11.15 till 12. The two 
hours after this were called, " after twelve," which one 

67 5* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

usually spent in one's tutor's pupil -room. Dinner was at 
2 p.m., then school again from 2.45 till 3.30, and then from 
5 to 6. After this the boys were free till the time for " lock- 
up," which changes with the time of year. In the summer 
it was at 8.45. A half-holiday was just the same until 
dinner, but in the afternoon " absence " was called at 3 
p.m. in the winter and at 6 p.m. in the summer. " Absence " 
is a call-over of the names, which takes place in the school 
yard. Its object was to prevent boys from going too far 
away, and ensuring that they should be back in time for 
" lock-up." When a master did not come for " absence," 
it was termed a " call " ; and the boys only waited five or 
six minutes for him. 

In addition to the work done in school and pupil-room, 
we had work to do in our own rooms, especially on a Sunday, 
when we had Sunday Questions to write out. The half- 
holidays were on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, 
and on Sundays, besides attending Chapel, we had the 
Sunday Questions to answer. This usually occupied us 
several hours. 

There was a boy at James's who was then in the Remove, 
called Craven, a tall, dark, good-looking fellow, who dressed 
well and had an umbrella with a death's-head handle carved 
in ivory, which he never opened, even when it poured with 
rain, from fear that he would not be able to fold it again 
so neatly as it was then done up. He always wore the 
most expensive silk hats he could buy, and habitually scented 
himself with patchouli. One rainy day, when all James's 
Lower boys were in his pupil-room, in the house, Mr. James 
called up Craven, and said to him : — 

" Craven, why don't you sign your name in full : Fulwar 
John Colquilt Craven ? " 

" I do, sir," answered Craven. 

" But you don't — merely Fulwar Craven. Don't you 
own the John Colquilt ? " 

All the boys began to titter, and Craven laughed and 
said : — 

" I suppose I don't, sir." 

68 



Mr. James's " Jokes " 

" Why do you stupid boys giggle ? " exclaimed Mr. James. 
" There is nothing to laugh at because Craven won't own 
his name, John Colquilt, which is a very nice one." 

The boys went on laughing all the more, at which the 
master was furious, and cried : 

" I will make you all write out a book of the Iliad if 
you don't stop giggling at once." 

This threat had the desired effect, and gravity was 
restored ; but it did not last very long. A good-looking 
boy named Ady, who was at Miss Evans's Dame's house, 
but was a pupil of my tutor, and who wore a lot of gold 
charms on his watch-chain, came up to Mr. James to ask 
some questions, when the latter said : — 

" Ady, I wonder you don't wear bracelets with all those 
jingling things ; you are more like a girl." =; 

Thereupon all the boys began to titter again, while Ady 
blushed, but did not make any reply. On returning to his 
seat, however, he put out his tongue at Mr. James, who 
happened to be looking in another direction, and then 
smiled, when the boys began to laugh with a vengeance. 

" Stop that laughter," screamed the exasperated master, 
his eyes sparkling with wrath, " or I'll have all of you swished 
in turn. I won't stand this nonsense any longer. First 
of all with Craven, who is scented like a fast lady, and then 
with Ady, who is covered with jewellery like another ; I 
might just as well keep a girls' school." 

The giggling now became downright laughter, which the 
boys were quite unable to restrain. At last, Mr. James 
began to see that he had made a joke, which flattered his 
vanity, so he smiled, and said : — 

" Yes, even the boys are laughing at you both." 

This was too much for his audience, who roared with 
laughter, until, after a while, the master said : — 

" Now, I think, we have laughed enough ; I hope it will 
be a lesson to them both." 

Craven and Ady nearly split their sides with laughing, 
as well as the others. 

" I see I can do nothing with you to-day," remarked 

69 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Mr. James, " these laughing moods are very distressing ; 
it upsets the whole of the lessons. I must be more serious 
with you, and not permit myself even a joke. I see it plainly 
more and more every time." 

At last the merriment subsided, but presently some of 
the boys began laughing again. 

" What is the joke now ? " exclaimed the master. " Tell 
me, for I should like to know. I can see nothing whatever 
to laugh at now." 

" Please, sir," answered Craven, " you make a joke, and 
you won't even allow us to laugh at it." 

" Oh, well ! if it is that that you are laughing at, I suppose 
it is all right," said Mr. James, who was gradually regaining 
his good-humour, and presently the boys were dismissed. 
Afterwards there was great fun made at his expense, Craven 
and Ady being highly amused. 

Mr. James was nicknamed " Stiggins " by the boys who 
had been with him at Eton, and, although unpopular out of 
his house, he was not so in it. There were much more 
disagreeable tutors at Eton at the time of which I am speak- 
ing, some of them perfect horrors. Mr. James was a good- 
hearted man, and was very kind at times, though he was 
very brusque in his manner, and in the habit of speaking 
his mind without the least reservation. He had no parti- 
cular favourites, but, on the other hand, he did not take 
any violent dislikes, and was just enough, apart from occa- 
sional sallies against certain boys. These he indulged in 
under the impression that he was being witty, and not in- 
frequently the jokes he made were at his own expense. 
He had a good memory and could recite innumerable 
verses from Greek and Latin poets, but he was a poor orator. 
He was a good chess-player, and often played with the 
boys, giving them a queen and sometimes a rook as well, 
and generally beating them. Sometimes he played with 
another master, Mr. Wayte, a middle-aged man, with a grey 
beard, who could play twentj^-five games of chess at the 
same time blindfolded, and win most of them. Mr. James 
once beat Mr. Wayte, after which he would never play 

70 



My Room at Eton 

with him again, wishing to be able to say that the last time 
he played with him he had succeeded in gaining the victory. 
I often played chess with nay tutor, on which occasions he 
usually gave me a queen. Sometimes I managed to beat 
him, and once when I had been successful, he said to me : — 

" You have beaten me, and I have beaten Wayte, who is 
one of the finest players in Europe. So, in winning the 
game to-day, you have something to be proud of." 

We always tried to make our rooms at James's as com- 
fortable as possible. I had a fancy at that time for pictures 
of horses, and bought a set of steeplechase ones, by Aiken, 
printed in colours and published by Ackermann. I had 
also a picture of Hermit, the Derby winner of 1865, by 
Harry Hall, which was also printed in colours. In the 
summer, like the other boys, I had geraniums and other 
flowers in a large green wooden box, which was made to 
cover the length of my window-sill. I spent, however, 
more of my time in Doyne's room, which was nearer the 
road, and farther away from the cemetery. It was a more 
cheerful room, containing several arm-chairs. Besides, we 
always messed together and took our meals there, and so 
I looked on the room almost as being my own. Alexander 
and Locke had two rooms each. The latter had quite a 
collection of silver cups, which he had won at Eton, and 
his sitting-room was decorated with numerous trophies 
of the Boats, arranged against the wall, from the light blue 
of the Victory and the dark blue of the Monarch to the 
cerise of the Prince oj Wales and the blue of the Britannia. 
I can only remember entering Alexander's room once. It 
was also adorned with the colours of the Eleven and silver 
cups won at cricket and racquets, as he was Captain of 
the Eleven and President of " Pop." " Pop " is the name 
given to the Eton Society, to which only boys in the Sixth 
Form and the Upper Fifth can belong. 

The occasion on which I entered Alexander's room was 
on a Sunday. He opened his door, and called : " Lower 
boy ! " and, as I happened to be on the landing, he said 
that he must send me to make a copy of his Sunday Ques- 

71 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

tions, which were always written up outside St. George's 
Chapel at Windsor. It was a dreary walk, for, as it was 
Sunday afternoon, all the shops were, of course, closed. 
I made a copy of the Questions in pencil, and, on my return, 
left them in Alexander's room. At eleven o'clock that 
night, he came and woke me up, to ask if I could read some 
word I had copied, which I had to confess I could not. He 
went away, but returned to my room an hour later, and, 
waking me up again, said he thought he could make a guess 
at the word we had been unable to make out, and asked 
me if it were not correct. I then suddenly remembered 
that it was the right word, when he laughed and went out. 
This was the only time I was ever sent to copy out Sunday 
Questions, as Alexander always, as a rule, sent his own 
fags to do this, and Locke, whose fag I was, hardly ever 
gave me anything to do. I was, in consequence, very 
sorry when he left Eton, which he did very shortly after- 
wards for Trinity College, Cambridge. Alexander went up 
to King's. 

One half I was up to a master called Austin Leigh, who 
was in the habit of speaking so softly that we could scarcely 
hear a word he said in school. So when he spoke, I always 
had to guess what he said. One day he asked me to construe 
a passage, which I did, when he corrected me, saying : — 

" I told you what to say." 

" Please, sir, I could not hear exactly." 

" Are you deaf ? " j ' ^ 

" No, sir, but I did not hear exactly." 

" Then, for not listening, you will please write out the 
lesson as a punishment. Do you hear now ? " 

" Yes, sir." 

I hated being up to Austin Leigh, for I never could hear, 
as he always spoke in a whisper somewhat like the hissing 
of a serpent. 

There was another master, who thought himself rather 
good-looking, as he had regular features ; but he had yellowish 
hair, was inclined to baldness, and his figure was lanky 
and awkward. This master was fond of making very tame 

72 



Some Eton Masters 

jokes in school. If we laughed at them, it was all right, 
but the boys who ignored his jokes he punished. He in- 
sisted on calling Lord Edward Somerset by the name 
of Samson, but once when he called upon " Samson " to 
stand up, no one rose. He then turned to Lord Edward 
Somerset, and said : — 

" Why did you not stand up when I told you to do so ? " 

" Because you never told me, sir." 

" I did ; your name is Samson, isn't it ? " 

" No, sir ; it's Somerset." 

" Well, anyhow, you knew that I meant you." 

Somerset made no reply, and the master said : — 

" For disobedience you will write me out this chapter of 
* Xenophon ! '" 

" Very well, sir." 

Among the numerous masters at Eton with whom I had 
little or nothing to do, those whom I remember best are : 
Mr. Stephen Hawtrey, who was a very agreeable man ; 
Mr. Hale, a mathematical master, nicknamed, on account of 
his whitish hair, " the Badger," who was also very pleasant ; 
the Rev. W. Dalton, another mathematical master, who had 
very full lips and a reddish face, and went by the sobriquet 
of " Piggy "; the Rev. Joynes, who had somewhat the 
appearance of a weasel, and had great difficulty in keeping 
his division in order ; Mr. Cornish, a fair-haired man, who 
was rather disagreeable at times ; and Mr. Cockshot, also a 
mathematical master, who was bright and pleasant. The 
Rev. Durnford, nicknamed " Judy," I only knew by sight, 
and the same was the case with Mr. Arthur James, my 
tutor's brother, who was an exceptionally pleasant man. 

All the masters had some peculiarity, and it took some time 
to get used to their ways, as they were all so different from 
one another. Just, however, as a boy was beginning to 
understand a master the half came to an end, and, after the 
holidays, he would probably be sent up to quite a different 
kind of man. For each master took a separate division, 
and was promoted like the boys from one division to another. 

The most popular master was the Rev. Edmund Warre, 

73 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

afterwards Head Master and Provost of Eton. He was a 
good-looking, fair man, who wore spectacles, and, besides 
being one of the cleverest of the masters, was a very fine oar, 
and always superintended the coaching of the Eight. He 
used to try to interest the boys up to him in school in a sub- 
ject, as Herr Kirchhofer did at Frankfurt. I remember 
once, during a lesson in geography, he said that Austria- 
Hungary was a nation which would one day break up, since 
it consisted of too many nationalities, the link between which 
was not sufficiently strong to be permanent. Upon another 
occasion, he recommended us to read " The Last of the 
Barons," by Lord Lytton, which he said was one of the best 
historical novels ever written, and I remember that some of 
us followed his advice. 

There was a good deal of jealousy amongst certain 
masters, who did not pull together. Mr. Oscar Browning 
was unpopular with some of his colleagues, though he 
was very much liked by the boys at his house and those 
up to him in school. There can be little doubt that the 
dislike entertained by certain masters for Mr. Browning 
was due to jealousy, as he was cleverer than the majority of 
them, and he was certainly very witty, and at times rather 
sarcastic. I was up to him in school one half, and I think, 
on the whole, he was the pleasantest master I was ever up to, 
since he used to enliven the tedium of school hours by his 
witty remarks, occasionally making fun of some of us, but 
in such a nice, pleasant way, that we all enjoyed the joke, 
even those who were the cause of the merriment. It was 
almost impossible to be late for school with Mr. Browning, 
as he generally arrived late on the scene himself. Now and 
again, however, he reversed the usual order of things, and 
then those who had counted on his late arrival were caught 
and punished. 

Mr. R. A. H. Mitchell, the famous cricketer, was a master 
of the Lower School. My friend Jim Doyne was up to him, 
and said that he was very popular with the boys. 

There was another master, Mr. St. John Thackeray, who 
had no authority whatever over the boj^s up to him in school, 

74 



A Disorderly Form 

wha invariably made fun of him, and jeered at him all the 
time. I was up to him one half, when I found it quite 
impossible to learn anything, owing to the constant disturb- 
ance, which was quite overpowering. I used to come in late 
continually when up to Mr. Thackeray, as I knew it did not 
much matter. One day, however, he said to me : — 

" You are half an hour late this morning ! " 

" Please, sir, I overslept myself." 

" But you always oversleep yourself." 

" Please, sir, I couldn't help it ; I was so tired." 

" What made you so tired . . . ? " 

Here the other boys began to laugh, and someone said 
aloud : — • 

" He's always so slack." 

" Which boy spoke ? " asked Mr. Thackeray angrily. A 
dead silence ensued. 

" I will know which boy spoke just now. If the boy 
doesn't come forward at once, I shall punish all the division." 

Upon this two or three boys said : — 

" It was I, sir." 

" Which of you was it ? " asked Mr. Thackeray. 

" I, sir," sounded from different parts of the room. 

" It's really too bad ; the whole division shall be punished 
then," said the master. 

While he was occupied in making a note of this, a book was 
hurled across the room, at which there was great laughter. 
Mr. Thackeray was furious. 

" I shall have to report the whole division for bad conduct 
if I don't know at once who threw that book," he cried. 

" It was I," said one boy. 

Then, a moment afterwards, another voice said : — 

" It was I, sir." 

" But it could not have been both of you. Which of you 
was it ? " 

" Me, sir," said the first boy who had spoken. 
" Then you will please write out the chapter we are 
reading " — then, correcting himself — " or, rather, which we 
ought to be reading." 

75 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

For a few minutes the lesson proceeded quietly, though 
on the least pretext there would be shouts of laughter. Mr. 
Thackeray entirely forgot to punish the other boy and myself ; 
only the one who had hurled the book was punished. Every 
day with Mr. Thackeray was similar to this one, sometimes 
more amusing, sometimes less so, but always very noisy 
indeed. He spoilt the boys for other masters, as, being 
accustomed to do as they liked with him, they would come 
late into school when they were up to others, who would 
send them up to be swished on a repetition of the offence. 
I was never swished at Eton during all the four years I was 
there. 

The late Earl Grosvenor, who, when Viscount Belgrave, 
was at Eton with me, was a very good-looking boy, with fair 
hair, but he wore jackets that were sometimes too short for 
him, and it was the same with his trousers, as he had grown 
out of them. One day, when he sat in school on a form in 
front of me, during a lesson by Mr. Henry Tarver, the French 
master, a boy sitting next me, seeing Belgrave's shirt, which 
was plainly visible between his jacket and trousers, pulled 
it right out altogether. Belgrave turned round angrily, 
thinking at first that it was I who had taken this liberty with 
his shirt, when he saw that the culprit was a boy whom he 
knew well. Nevertheless, he was very confused and had 
great trouble in adjusting his protruding garment, as it was 
necessary to do it in such a way as not to attract the atten- 
tion of Mr. Tarver, who would certainly have inquired 
into the matter and meted out condign punishment to the 
offender. 

There is a French saying that small events often interest 
great minds. I hope that this may be so, in which event 
there will be some excuse for my mentioning this incident, 
which struck me at the time as being rather ludicrous, though 
I cannot say whether others may be of the same opinion. 
Lord Grosvenor, after he left Eton, was fond of driving an 
engine, and I am told that he often drove the train between 
London and Holyhead for pleasure. 

His name reminds me of a good story that I once heard at 

76 



Lacaita's Silk Hat 

Eton about his grandfather, the Duke of Westminster. 
The latter, one day, was told by his groom of the chamber 
that the dress-coat that he wore was getting very shabby. 
The Duke asked to see it, and then told the man that he 
might order a new one for himself. " But," added the 
thrifty nobleman, " you may let me have this old coat ; 
it will do quite well for me to wear." The Duke of AthoU, 
who was a first cousin of my grandfather, had also rather a 
contempt for dress, and my mother was told by the latter 
that, when an old man, he was often mistaken in the street 
for a beggar, and had pence offered him. 

There was a boy named Lacaita at Eton, who, when he 
first came, wore a most extraordinary hat. The lower part 
was much broader than the upper, so that the hat was not 
unlike a loaf of sugar. I think he must have imported it 
from Italy. However, if I remember rightly, it was very 
speedily battered out of any shape at all, for it was an innova- 
tion which pleased none of the boys, who were only too 
ready to make a football of it, as they generally did of any- 
thing they happened to take a dislike to, and particularly 
a silk hat. 

Doyne used frequently to invite boys from other houses 
to tea with us in his room. They were mostly those whom 
he knew " at home," that is to say, away from Eton, and who 
were friends of his people. The Hon. John FitzWilliam, 
who was in the same division as myself, often came, as he was 
a relative of his, as well as Lord Trafalgar, who was in the 
Lower School, and Lord Mandeville, who afterwards became 
Duke of Manchester. The last-named was a very good- 
looking boy, with very dark, curly hair ; he was full of fun, 
and I liked him very much, though I only met him when he 
came to tea with us, as he was lower down in the school and 
at a different tutor's house from myself. 

A boy named Charles Rice Hodgson, in the same division 
as I was, was my greatest friend at first. He was at Vidal's, 
a Dame's house. He was a very handsome boy, with rather 
fair hair and blue eyes, nearly perfect features, and a beau- 
tiful complexion. He used to dress very well and always 

11 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

wore a button-hole — a rose or a carnation in summer — and 
usually scented himself. He was very clever and had a good 
deal of swagger, and was a favourite with the bigger boys at 
Vidal's, who often used to walk with him, which was strongly 
disapproved of by some of the masters. I often helped him 
out of a difficulty ; and sometimes, when he had not learned 
his lesson over night, I would prompt him in a low voice to 
construe it, as I always sat next to him in school. He left 
Eton very suddenly, at which I was quite distressed, as he 
had always been so much with me, and I liked him more 
than any other boy, and had been in his company the day 
before he left. A more charming boy than Hodgson I have 
never known ; but he was conceited about his looks, for he 
was one of the best-looking boys, if not the best-looking, at 
Eton in those days. 

Another boy at the same Dame's house as Hodgson was 
Charles D. Robertson Williamson, who was considered to be 
the best-looking boy then at Eton. He was higher up in 
the school than I was, and, though his tutor, Mr. Johnson 
(Cory, the author of " lonica "), liked him very much, some 
of the other masters did not approve of his putting on so much 
side and being so often with bigger boys. At Lord's, during 
the Eton and Harrow match, I happened quite accidentally 
to make the acquaintance of Williamson's aunt. She was 
only eighteen, and bore a most extraordinary resemblance 
to her nephew, with the same beautiful face, the same short 
upper lip, the same large, round, hazel eyes, the same beau- 
tifully shaped mouth, the same delicate nose, slightly, in 
fact almost imperceptibly, tilted, and the same brown hair ; 
and she was of the same height as he was. She spoke to me 
without knowing me at all, saying : — 

" I want to keep my nephew with me a day or two longer. 
Do you think I can do so ? " 

*' You must ask his tutor ; no doubt he will allow you to 
do so," I answered, thinking that he could not possibly refuse 
her. 

" Well, I will try." 

With which, Williamson's aunt went off in search of Mr 

78 



" Billy '» Portman 

Johnson, and presentlj'^ returned, looking very pleased, and 
said : — 

" Mr. Johnson has given the permission I wanted. I am 
so happy ! " And she clapped her hands together with 
delight. 

I did not know Williamson to speak to before then, not 
being so high in the school as he was, and I met him for the 
first time when he came later in the day to meet his aunt 
in the Grand Stand at Lord's. 

Once, when Doyne and I were driving in a hansom from 
Lord's after the Eton and Harrow match, he caught sight of 
the Hon. E. W. B. Portman, and said to me : — 

" Do you mind giving Billy Portman a lift ? " 

We made room for him between us, which was an easy 
enough matter in those days, though in years to come it 
would have been quite impossible, for he grew so stout that 
he weighed seventeen stone, and I rather fancy Jim Doyne 
was even heavier. 



CHAPTER VII 

An Amusing Incident — Lady Caroline Murray — An Anecdote of Queen 
Victoria — Lord Rossmore's Wager — The Match at the Wall — Practical 
Jokes — Some Boys at James's 

BOYS at Eton rarely made friends outside their 
respective houses. Therefore, when Hodgson left, 
I spent most of my spare time with Doyne, who even then was 
very stout, and, though older than I, below me in the school. 
When he left Eton, my chief companion was a boy named 
Harry Gridley, with whom I messed for a short time, and 
with whom I often went for walks on a Sunday along the 
playing-fields by the river. 

Gridley, who was in the Fifth Form, was a dark-haired 
boy, very kind and good-natured. He was in the Boats, 
and a capital oar, and rowed later in the Monarch, the ten- 
oared Upper boat. Sometimes I would go to Windsor with 
him to play billiards, notwithstanding that this was against 
the rules. One day, whilst we were playing, I, by way of a 
joke, began ordering him about and calling him " Peter," 
and then, to tease him, told him that some man who was in 
the room thought he was my fag. He flew into a rage, and, 
when the man had left the room, rushed at me and caught me 
by the throat, as though he would strangle me. However, 
we soon made friends again, but, strange to say, this nick- 
name of " Peter," which I had given him for the first time in 
the billiard-room at Windsor, always stuck to him, even in 
the 5th Lancers, which he joined later. He was very fond of 
reading, and one day took up " Adam Bede," by George 
Eliot ; but he told me that he could not finish it, as the 
hero was a very ugly, red-haired man, and he disliked reading 
about ugly people. He quite set me against the book, for 
I never read it after he said this. 

80 





LJ 



■Charles Balfour, at Eton with the Author. 



ITofucep. 80. 




Miss Minnie Balfour, sister of Hilda, Lady 
de CliflFord. 



ITofacep. 81. 



All Amusing Incident 

Alexander, the Captain of the Oppidans, was a very 
good-looking boy of eighteen ; dark, with black, curly hair. 
His memory was quite extraordinary, and he could repeat 
the whole of the Odyssey, in the original Greek. Once 
he had read a book and mastered its contents, he never 
forgot it. Even Mr. James was astounded at Alexander's 
marvellous gift for remembering things. Locke was also 
clever, but in a different way from Alexander. 

Some time after I went to Eton, my tutor got his cousin, 
Mrs. Bower, to look after the boys instead of the housekeeper, 
which was a pleasant change for us. She was about thirty- 
five and a very nice woman, and, having taken rather a fancy 
to me, used often to invite me to her room at five o'clock 
and give me tea and cake. 

One day some friends of Doyne — a baronet and his three 
daughters — came from London to see him. As it was a 
Sunday, I did not get up until late, when I ran into Doyne's 
room, clad only in my night-shirt, and with my water-jug 
in my hand, to get some water to wash with. To my horror, 
I suddenly found myself confronted by three ladies, who, 
on catching sight of me, uttered a scream, and then, as I 
turned round and incontinently fled, burst into fits of laughter. 
Doyne told me afterwards that his friends were highly 
amused at this incident, and declared that they should 
never forget their visit to Eton. 

A boy named Charles Balfour was my fag when I was 
in the Fifth Form. Doyne, who was still in the Lower School, 
found my having a fag very convenient, as the latter had 
to cook the steaks and chops for our breakfast. Balfour 
was a good-looking boy, and I liked him very much ; but 
he could not bear doing anything for Doyne, as the latter 
was lower down in the school than he was. I met the late 
Charles Balfour, with his father and family, at Wiesbaden, 
in after years. His sister Hilda, a very pretty girl, sub- 
sequently married Lord de Clifford. 

With Balfour I met another old schoolfellow, Baldock, who 
was with his sister at Wiesbaden. He was twelfth man 
for the Eton Eleven one year, when I was there and Keeper 

8i 6 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

of " Sixpenny," and was a general favourite with the lower 
boys. Later on, in town, I recollect going to a ball at his 
house in Grosvenor Place. He was made a C.B. by King 
Edward VII., having served thirty-six years in the Yeomanry 
and reached the rank of colonel. 

The present Lord Harris, G.C.S.I., the v/ell-known cricketer, 
was in the Eton Eleven in my time and afterwards Captain ' 
of it. I can recollect him perfectly — a tall, fair-haired and 
remarkably handsome boy, with merry blue eyes, who always 
looked the picture of health. Amongst those who made 
their mark at cricket and football, and, at the same time, 
distinguished themselves in school, were the late Earl of 
Pembroke and Montgomery, then the Hon. Sidney Herbert, 
who was a good-looking boy, with blue eyes and black hair, 
and the late Earl of Onslow. The latter was at one time 
in the same division as myself. 

Sir Hubert Parry, so famous as a composer, was at Eton 
with me, but much higher up in the school than I was. He 
was at Vidal's, and a boy in his house told me that he played 
the violin beautifully. I can remember that he was a good 
football player, and that I thought him a very fine-looking 
fellow, but I onlj^ knew him by sight. 

Craven, when in the Fifth Form, kept his fags dancing 
attendance on him all their spare time, and used to send- 
them on long errands to Windsor. " Mug " was his fag for 
one half, and had a very lively time of it at first ; but after- 
wards Craven treated him very much better. I was John 
Lister-Kaye's fag at one time, and found him more exacting 
than Locke, with whom I had had a very easy time ; but he 
became a friend of mine when I was higher up in the school. 
" Mug " was his fag at the same time, and liked fagging for 
him very much, as he treated him very kindly. His younger 
brother, Cecil Lister-Kaye, was a friend of mine from the 
very first. Both brothers were very good-looking boys, 
with fair hair. The elder, afterwards Sir John Lister-Kaye, 
who rowed in the Victory at Eton, subsequently entered 
the " Blues." On one occasion, the Lister-Kayes and myself 
were invited to dine at Upton Park, with Mrs. Adair, a very 

82 




W. H. Onslow, aged 13, afterwards 
Lord Onslow. 



iTofaicp. 8?. 




The Hon. Emily Cathcart, Maid of 
Honour to Queen Victoria. 



\Tofueep. 83. 



Lady Caroline Murray 

lovely woman, who, I recollect, was dressed in black velvet, 
which set off her superb figure and dazzling skin to great 
advantage. She was a granddaughter of the Duchess of 
Roxburghe and a great friend of my cousin, the Hon. Emily 
Cathcart, maid-of-honour to Queen Victoria. 

One day, the Hon. Charles Finch, afterwards Earl of Ayles- 
ford, who was in the same division as myself, told me that 
he had stopped my cousin while she was walking with a 
lady in Eton, and that a few days later, when he happened 
to meet her again, she said to him : — 

" I have a bone to pick with you. Do you know whom 
you kept waiting when you spoke to me the other day ? 
It was the Princess Louise (afterwards Duchess of Argyll) ! " 
The Earl of Aylesford, like myself, was a cousin of Emily 
Cathcart. 

While at Eton, I used occasionally to spend the day with 
my great-aunt, Lady Georgiana Cathcart. She lived near 
Ascot, and once when I was driving with her and her daughter 
we called on the Ladies Murray, who had a fine house in 
the neighbourhood, and Lady Caroline told us that if we 
had come some minutes earlier, we should have met Queen 
Victoria, who had lunched with them in quite an informal 
way, saying:— 

" Give me what you have read}'', nothing else." 

Lady Caroline told me that, ov/ing to bearing the same 
name, she had frequently been mistaken for my mother's 
aunt at Richmond, who had recently died. She showed me 
an oak-tree which her brother, the Earl of Mansfield, had 
planted in his garden the last time he had come to see her. 
In her younger days, she had been lady-in-waiting to the 
Duchess of Kent, at which time she was considered a great 
beauty. 

One day, when I was dining at Ascot, I met my cousin 
Emily, who was wearing a lovely dress of violet velvet, 
trimmed with white lace, and said : — 

" Her Majesty said I was not to wear this dress at Court, 
and I have only worn it once before, although it cost me a 
good deal of money." 

83 6* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Queen Victoria, it seems, would often take a dislike to 
some dress worn by one of her maids-of-honour. 

I frequently went to Windsor Castle to see my cousin. 
On one occasion, I mistook the room, and had to wait for 
some time in a drawing-room. Presently, a lady came , in, 
who was very charming in her manner towards me, and 
had some tea and muffins brought to me by a man-servant 
in the scarlet livery of the Palace. This lady I afterwards 
learned was the Countess of Erroll. Once, when I called 
at the Castle I was received by the Hon. Harriet Phipps, 
who told me that my cousin had left Windsor and that she 
had taken her place in waiting. She invited me to have some 
tea, which was brought in in a solid silver teapot, and served 
in very fine porcelain cups, on both of which was the Royal 
crown, and was very kind and amiable. 

One day, my cousin Emily asked me to bring the late Lord 
Alexander Kennedy, son of the Marquis of Ailsa, who was 
in my division at Eton, to the Castle to tea, which I did. 
He and I smoked cigarettes in her room, and, when we heard 
her coming, threw them out of the window. However, she 
smelt the smoke and said : — 

" I hope you have not thrown the cigarettes out of the 
window, for ' H.M.' is coming this way, and I shall get 
into trouble if she sees them." 

We tried to calm her, but she appeared to be rather annoyed 
at the time. 

Emily Cathcart was very good-looking, with dark eyes and 
black hair and a fine figure. In her general appearance, 
she always reminded me very much of the late Empress of 
Austria. Her manner was charming, and she was always 
very amiable, and had so pleasant a smile that it seemed 
as though it would be impossible for her to be angry with 
anyone. I remember her telling me once that at Windsor 
she rarely ever spoke English, having to receive so many 
foreign guests for Her Majesty. On the occasion that Kennedy 
and I went there, we saw the Due d'Aumale walking away 
from the Castle as we arrived. 

Queen Victoria liked to be read to by her maids-of-honour, 

84 



An Anecdote of Queen Victoria 

which was sometimes a very trying experience for them, 
particularly by night. A boy at Eton was one of her pages- 
of-honour, and, as he was late in coming out of school one day 
that his services were required, he did not stop to wash his 
hands, but hurried off to the Castle, in order to be in time 
for some ceremony. Afterwards, the train which he had to 
hold was found to have dirty spots on it, so he was immediately 
dismissed from his office by Her Majesty. This story was 
told me by Mr. James. 

My mother told me that Queen Victoria was once lunching 
at the house of the Duke of Sussex, and, on being asked if 
the mutton cutlets were to her liking, replied carelessly : — 

" Oh ! the chops are not bad." She also related that once, 
in her younger days, the Queen was visiting the country- 
seat of a certain nobleman, where everything imaginable 
in and out of season had been procured for Her Majesty's 
delectation, no matter at what cost. However, on the Queen 
being asked what she would be pleased to take, to the horror 
and amazement of her host, she named the only thing which 
was not in the house, and which there was no possibility 
of procuring. It was whispered that the Queen had asked 
for this particular plat, which was one of a simple but 
unusual kind, purposely, as she appeared to be amused at 
the consternation her request had aroused. 

Just after I left Eton, Emily invited me to the Haymarket 
Theatre, telling me to inquire for the Queen's box. I arrived, 
and was duly ushered into the Royal box, which, however, 
was untenanted. So I sat there in solitary state, to the no 
small curiosity of the audience, who perhaps imagined 
that I must be some quite important person, until presently 
my cousin arrived, accompanied by a very handsome and 
exquisitely dressed woman, who, I learned, was Lady 
Churchill. The latter, who was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, 
was most fascinating, and had all the distinction of a ires 
grande dame. She was most kind and gracious to me, even 
going out of her way to draw me out, so that I was soon 
quite at my ease in her company. 

In winter, if we happened to have a frost hard enough to 

85 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

make Virginia Water safe for skaters, we used to be taken 
there by Mr. James to skate and play hockey on the ice, a 
game in which my tutor always took part himself. Windsor 
Steeplechases were an event always looked forward to by 
the boys, for, though we were forbidden to go to them, we 
went all the same. Sometimes we would be attacked by 
roughs, who tried to prevent us crossing certain ditches to 
get to the race-course, and on one occasion a man tried to 
stop me. But I pushed him aside, managed to jump a 
ditch, and got safely to the course. Windsor Fair was at 
one time forbidden to the boys, but this did not prevent 
them all going there. I went once with Craven and saw a 
circus without paying anything, the man at the entrance 
having overlooked us as we rushed in. Afterwards, Mr. 
James happened to mention the Fair, when we all laughed 
and began to talk about the different shows we had seen. 
The master took it in good part, merely remarking : — 
" It's lucky for you I did not catch you there." 
The Christopher Inn at Eton was also out of bounds, 
but at times some of the big boys would invite the smaller 
ones there. If, however, one of the masters happened to 
catch sight of them coming out, there would be the devil 
to pay. I don't remember ever going to the " Christopher," 
though I did most things that were forbidden. 

The elder son of General Sir John Douglas, Captain Niel 
Douglas, who was an Old Etonian and an officer in the Scots 
Guards, then stationed at Windsor, invited me to lunch at 
the barracks, where I was introduced to Lord Mark Innes- 
Ker, who used to ride his own horses in the Windsor Steeple- 
chases. I enjoyed my lunch very much, as it was quite a 
novelty for me. Eton boys were often invited to the 
barracks to lunch with officers of the Household Brigade 
whom they knew, as so many Old Etonians went into the 
Guards. I remember Blane, who was a pupil of my tutor, 
once coming down to Eton just after he had left the school, 
and telling me that he was about to join the Scots Guards, 
who were then stationed at Windsor. Lord Rossmore, 
whom I knew very well at Eton, entered the 1st Life Guards, 

86 



Lord Rossmore's Wager 

and was killed riding in a steeplechase over the Windsor 
course in 1874. By a singular coincidence he had fallen 
at the same jump, while riding the same horse, the previous 
year. Rossmore, who was in the same division with me, 
was very popular at Eton. He was perpetually playing 
practical jokes, and I can recollect that on one occasion he 
made a bet that he would drive a trap through Eton. He 
won it, too, by driving through the town on a cart, disguised 
as a waterman, so that the masters did not recognize him. If 
one of them had happened to penetrate his disguise, he would 
perhaps have been expelled. 

Gridley and I once went for a bicycle ride in the country, 
and, happening to be seen, were sent up to the Head Master, 
Dr. Hornby, who said : — 

"It is too grave an offence for me to swish you, so each 
of you must write out a book of the Iliad, with accents, 
stops and breathings." 

Fortunately for us, Mrs. Bower made Mr. James persuade 
the Head Master to let us off when we had done a quarter 
of the work. 

When I first went to Eton, the Head Master was Dr. 
Balston, a very handsome, stately and severe-looking man, 
whom the masters and boys liked — at a distance. When 
Dr. Hornby succeeded him, it was feared that he would 
introduce a great many reforms, which the masters dreaded 
as much as the boys ; but these apprehensions proved to 
be groundless. While I was at Eton, Dr. Hornby was very 
much- liked by the boys ; but I cannot say that his popu- 
larity extended to his colleagues, some of whom, I know, 
regarded him with far from friendly feelings. 

There was a " sock "-shop, called Brown's, near James's 
house in those days, where excellent buttered buns were 
sold. An Old Etonian, Theobald, Viscount Dillon, told me 
that, on his return to Eton when past sixty, he tried the buns 
again, and exclaimed : — 

" Goodness I how these buns have altered ; they aren't 
half as good as they used to be ! " Then, looking round at 
the boys, who seemed to be enjoying them just as much as 

87 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

he and his contemporaries had done in days of yore, he 
added regretfully : — 

" After all, it isn't the buns that have altered. It is 
simply that I have lost my taste for them." 

I used often to go to Brown's, generally of a morning, to 
eat a buttered bun, which I enjoyed immensely. There was 
another " sock "-shop, called Webber's, where in summer 
we used to indulge in strawberry messes. Marmalade was 
in favour with most of us for breakfast, and I recollect how 
Craven used always to send for eighteenpenny pots at a time, 
saying that the others were too small for his appetite. 

One Fourth of June my father came down to Eton, and 
asked at my tutor's for Charles Douglas, the younger son 
of General Sir John Douglas, and William Kinglake, who 
was in a different house and whom I did not then know. 
We all walked down to the river to see the boats. It was 
a very pretty sight, and prettier still in the evening, when 
the fireworks began. I saw several lovely young girls, 
beautifully dressed, drinking champagne with their brothers, 
and envied the latter having such pretty sisters. William 
Kinglake was a nephew of the author of " Eothen," who was 
a first cousin of my father. He was in the Boats the follow- 
ing year, but died soon after he left Eton. Charles Douglas, 
after leaving Eton, joined his father's old regiment, the 
79th Highlanders, but soon retired from the Service, while 
still a lieutenant. 

I passed my " exam." in swimming before Mr. Warre at 
my first try, and often went on the river. But I was a 
" dry bob," and generally preferred playing cricket in 
" Sixpenny," some of the fields by the river, which in winter 
were used for football matches. Doyne never went on 
the river, since, as he was not allowed to bathe, he could 
not pass the necessary " exam.," and so was forcibly a " dry 
bob." At James's, only Alexander and one or two others 
were " dry bobs," and, as the house was a small one, we had 
no cricket eleven, like other houses. James's football colours 
were a combination of reds of different shades with violet 
and black, which were not by any means pretty colours. 



The Match at the Wall 

Yonge's were red and black ; Day's, black and white ; 
Evans's, scarlet with a black skull and cross-bones ; Warre's, 
a combination of red, yellow and other colours ; and Vidal's, 
yellow and black. The well-known cricketer, C. I. Thornton, 
was at Vidal's, and was a great friend of Williamson, while 
the latter was there. Thornton was a tremendously hard 
hitter at cricket, and I can remember many of his wonderful 
hits beyond the ropes when he was playing for Eton against 
Harrow at Lord's. The colours of the Second Eleven or 
Twenty-two at cricket were blue and black ; the Eton Eleven, 
of course, wore light blue, as did the Eton Eight. 

On St. Andrew's Day a football match — the game at the 
Wall — was played between Oppidans and Collegers, in 
which the latter were generally successful, so far as I can 
recollect. This match always drew a large crowd, but, for 
a spectator, I cannot imagine anything more tedious to 
watch, unless he be interested in the final result, and even 
then he must be gifted with an uncommon stock of patience 
to be able to watch it from start to finish. For those engaged 
in it it is, of course, different, as some players prefer the wall 
to the field game, and I have heard that it affords them more 
excitement, besides being a far greater strain on the nerves 
and muscles. A lady who would enjoy watching the game 
at the Wall would in all probability find pleasure in a Spanish 
bull-fight, though both would be distasteful to a really ner- 
vous, sensitive girl. A young Spanish lady once told me at 
Seville that to look at a girl performing on the trapeze made 
her feel faint, whereas she never failed to attend a bull-fight 
on a Sunday, in which she took a keener pleasure than in any 
other form of amusement. This shows how strangely one's 
nerves are constituted, and that this kind of thing is, after 
all, merely a matter of habit. 

In the summer, Mr. James would often take us with 
Mrs. Bower on the river, when we would bring our dinner 
with us, and would often go as far as Monkey Island, or 
even to Maidenhead, returning at night by moonlight. We 
all rowed in turn and had dinner in the beautiful woods of 
Cliveden, which was at that time the property of the Duke 

89 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

of Sutherland, but now belongs to Lord Astor, whose father 
subsequently bought the estate. The late Duke of Suther- 
land, who was then the Marquis of Stafford, was with me at 
Eton, but higher up in the school, and I can remember him 
very well. He was a good-looking boy with fair hair. 

Lord Astor (formerly Mr. Waldorf Astor), the present 
owner of Cliveden, was at Eton also, though very many years 
after my time, where he was Captain of the Boats, and 
gained the Prince Consort's Prize for French one year. His 
father belonged to one of the best families in the United 
States, and the son became a naturalized Englishman. 

These river excursions were most enjoyable, and, when 
coming home, we sang songs in chorus, which sounded well 
in the stillness of the summer night. I was nearly always 
taken by Mr. James, as I was one of Mrs. Bower's favourites, 
and she insisted on my being invited. A boy named H. B. 
Walker, who was then high up in the school, was also gener- 
ally one of the party. Walker was very amusing, and used 
to chaff me to annoy Mrs. Bower, but all in jest, as we were 
very good friends. Mr. James was very pleasant during 
these outings, and would sometimes indulge his propensity 
for making jokes, which at times the boys would appreciate, 
though at others they found the wit a trifle strained. One 
day. Walker said : — 

" That joke you made I think I could improve upon, sir." 

" I did not mean it for one ; you always see a joke where 
I cannot see anything," replied Mr. James. 

" Charles, you know you meant it for a joke," exclaimed 
Mrs. Bower. 

" Well, if I did, I apologize," said her cousin, laughing ; 
" but you boys always appreciate my jokes better in school 
hours." 

" Because there is generally more point in them, sir," 
remarked Walker. 

" But the best of it is I never can see any joke in some 
of the things I say which provoke fits of laughter, and that 
always annoys me considerably." 

" It's quite a habit of yours, Charles, to make these 

90 




Henry Hooker Walker, at Eton with 
the Author. 



ITo face p. 90. 




The Hon. J. W. Lowther, present 
Speaker of the House of Commons. 



ll'o face p. 91. 



Practical Jokes 

jokes," said Mrs. Bower ; " I confess I don't care for them 
at any time." 

" Ladies never do," retorted Mr. James. 

And he laughed and looked very pleased at his remark, to 
which Mrs. Bower vouchsafed no reply. 

Another boy who often went on these river excursions was 
a nephew of Mrs. Bower, named Holdsworth. He was a 
fine-looking fellow, older than I was and much higher up in 
the school. He was a very good oar, rowing in the Victory 
and also in the Eight ; but he over-exerted himself in the 
latter and died shortly after leaving Eton. His father was 
a wealthy man, and his mother was called at one time the 
" Pocket Venus." He had a sister, a pretty, fair-haired 
girl, who in after years married the late Sir James Dimsdale, 
Lord Mayor of London, who was also an Etonian. 

Walker also died shortly after leaving school, when he 
was barely eighteen. He died of a brain disease at his 
mother's house in Palmeira Square, Brighton. I happened 
to be at Brighton a few weeks before, and he came to see me. 

One First of April, at Eton, I delivered a message to 
Walker, which was supposed to have come from Lord Ross- 
more, asking him to lunch at the " Christopher " at one 
o'clock. Rossmore, who had been very friendly with Walker 
at school, had lately joined the 1st Life Guards, who were 
stationed at Windsor Barracks, and often invited Walker 
there And so the latter, suspecting nothing, went to the 
" Christopher," and Vv^aited there for some time for Ross- 
more, with the result that he v/as not only disappointed of 
his expected lunch, but missed his dinner at James's. He 
was very angry with me at the time, but he often laughed 
afterwards at this practical joke. 

I also wrote a note to a boy named Lewin C. Cholmeley, 
purporting to come from a person living in a street at the 
farther end of Windsor, where I had never been, to say that 
if he called there he would hear of something to his advan- 
tage. He, too, fell into the trap, went to the street men- 
tioned, and hunted a long time for the house, but was unable 
to^find it, as there was no such number there. When he 

91 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

got back to James's he found that dinner was over, and I 
don't think he ever quite forgave me for the joke I had played 
upon him ; certainly he never forgot it. Cholmeley was 
lower in school than I was at that time. When in the Fifth 
Form, he was in the Boats. I heard that, after I left Eton, 
he fell out with my tutor one Fourth of June, and was one 
of those who nearly drowned him in Chalvey. This affair 
might have entailed serious consequences for Cholmeley, 
had not Mr. James forgiven him and interceded in his 
favour with the Head Master. Cholmeley is now a wealthy 
solicitor in London. 

When I had nothing better to do of an evening, I often 
used to go to Leyton's, at Windsor, which was famous for 
its pastry, and where a good many Eton boys were always 
to be found. My companion on these occasions was usually 
Lord Edward Somerset, who was in my division. On leaving 
Eton, Lord Edward Somerset entered the 23rd Welsh Fusi- 
liers, from which he subsequently exchanged into the " Blues." 
He died soon after his marriage, while still quite young. 

The German master at Eton was Herr Griebel, from 
whom I tbok private lessons at the same time as Count 
Bentinck. We read together Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen 
Werthers and Auerbach's Das Landhaus am Rhein. Herr 
Griebel told me that after he had been in England some 
time he forgot German entirely. Then he went back to 
Germany, and entirely forgot English. " But now," he 
added, " I shall never forget either language, as I am far 
too old." I was in the select one year for the Prince Consort's 
German Prize, and the year following next in marks to the 
boy who won it. For the French Prize I was also rather 
high up in marks. Mr. Frank Tarver and his brother were 
the French masters at Eton then. One half the former got 
up a performance of Moli^re's le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 
which was acted by the boys and himself. Moliere is said 
to have portrayed himself in le Misanthrope. It is well 
known that he used to read his comedies, first of all, to his 
old housekeeper, and when she smiled at certain passages, 
he felt sure that they would amuse the public also. 

92 



Some Boys at James's 

Gridley's younger brother, Reginald Gridley, after I had 
left Eton, rowed in the Victory and the Eight, and was a 
well-known oar at Cambridge, where he rowed for the 
University Eight against Oxford. Gridley himself, after 
holding a commission in the 5th Lancers and subsequently 
in the 78th Highlanders, was called to the Bar, but died soon 
afterwards. George Baird, who rowed in the Eight in 1873, 
was also at James's, and was my fag for a short time. When 
he was in the Fifth Form, Arthur Cavendish-Bentinck, now 
Duke of Portland, fagged for him. George Baird, after 
leaving Eton, joined the 16th Lancers, and is now a 
colonel. I saw a good deal of him at my tutor's, but 
all I remember about him is that he was a very nice 
fellow and that he messed with Blagrove. He had a 
cousin, Douglas Baird, who was also at James's. Craven, 
on leaving Eton, entered the Grenadier Guards, from which 
he retired as captain. He married soon afterwards, and died 
at twenty-two. Holdsworth messed with Thomas Wood, 
who was also in the Boats (the Thetis), and distinguished 
himself in school. I met him in after years at Aldershot, 
where he was in the Grenadier Guards, and I remember that 
he behaved very generously to Temple — " Mug," as we 
used to call him at Eton — when he was in bad health and 
poor circumstances, assisting him and seeing that he had 
the best medical advice in his illness, of which, however, 
he died when he was barely twenty years old. 

Two other boys who were with me at James's were Percy 
Aylmer and Augustus Ralli. Aylmer, who was a very good- 
looking and exceedingly nice fellow, travelled with Colvin 
in after years, and now resides on his property in Durham. 
Ralli was a bright-looking boy, with very dark eyes, and 
was very popular in the house. Unhappily, he died of 
rheumatic fever at Eton in March 1872. There were, of 
course, many other boys at James's besides those whom I 
have mentioned, but I cannot now recall anything about 
them worth recording here. Doyne left Eton long before 
I did, and died of influenza some years ago in Ireland. 



93 



CHAPTER VIII 

Athletic Sports at Eton — A " Scrap " — Lord Newlands — An 
Old Boy on Eton of To-day 

HENLEY REGATTA was an event v/hich was alway 
eagerly looked forward to by us boys, I used to g 
there with Mr. James and Mrs. Bower and some of the boy 
in our house. Sometimes we went by river all the way 
at others by rail. One year, while sitting in the Gran 
Stand, I overheard a conversation between a boy name 
Kirklinton-Saul and his mother. Said the latter : — 

" I don't always expect to hear from you, my deai 
but when you want money, be sure and write, won' 
you ? " 

To which request the young gentleman gave the answe 
which might be expected. 

I could not help thinking at the time : " What a nic 
mamma ! I wonder if there are many such mamms 
about ? " The dinner at Henley used to consist of due 
and green peas with beer, which the boys used to enjo 
greatly ; but there was such a crowd at the regatta, tha 
there was always a tremendous scramble to get to th 
tables. Mr. James did not take dinner with him when w 
went to Henley, as it was so far from Eton. The toilette 
of the ladies were very elaborate, though hardly equal t 
those one saw at the Eton and Harrow match at Lord'i 
^ Nevertheless, there were some very pretty dresses, and- 
what was still more important — some very pretty face 
For many young girls came with their mothers to see the 
friends and relatives compete for the Ladies' Plate, whic 

94 



Athletic Sports at Eton 

in those days Eton used to win year after year in succession.* 
The light blue of Eton was worn by the boys and by the 
pretty girls who accompanied them. 

The Athletic Sports at Eton were always interesting to 
watch. The steeplechase course was a most severe one, 
some very big natural jumps having to be negotiated, ending 
with the brook, which was the biggest jump of all. H. M. 
Ridley was the fastest runner at Eton in my time. 

I recollect one day having a try at the brook in the 
" field," which I succeeded in jumping. The late Lord 
Lonsdale and his brother, the present Earl, were standing 
some way off, and must have thought I could not do it, for 
the former shouted out when I landed safely on the further 
bank : — 

" Well done, Black-eyed Susan ! " Black-eyed Susan, I 
may mention, was the name of a popular burlesque, by 
Douglas Jerrold, which had a great run at that time at 
the Strand Theatre. One morning, before breakfast, I ran 
John Lister-Kaye one hundred yards for a bet of five shillings, 
he giving me five yards start, and managed to win, though 
he had felt very confident about beating me. I ran one year 
in the Hundred Yards for boys under sixteen at the Sports, 
and Holdsworth, who was acting as umpire, told me after- 
wards that I might have won it, had I not stopped a yard 
short, through mistaking the boundary line. He often 



* During the four years I was at Eton, we won the" Ladies' " at Henley 
every time. The winning crews were composed as follows : — 

1867 : W. D. Benson (captain), A. G. P. Lewis (stroke), T. McClintock- 
Bunbury, W. G. Calvert, J. H. Ridley, R. W. Morehouse, G. H. Woodhouse, 
J. E. Edwards-Moss, F. H. Elliot (cox). 

1868 : T. McClintock-Bunbury (captain and stroke), W. C. Calvert, J. E. 
Edwards-Moss, F. A. Cvurey, J. Goldie (K.S.), F. Johnstone, J. W. 
McClintock-Bunbury, W. Farrer, F. E. Elliot (cox). 

1869 : J. E. Edwards-Moss (captain), F. A. Carrey, F, Johnstone, J. W. 
McClintock-Bimbury (stroke), F. C. Ricardo> J. S. Follett, F. E. H. Elliot, 
M. G. Farrer, W. C. Cartwright (cox). 

1870 : F. A. Currey (captain), J. W. McClintock-Bunbury (stroke), F, C 
Ricardo, J. S. Follett, A. W. Mulholland, C. W. Benson, R. E. Naylor, A. 
C. Yarborough, W. C. Cartwright (cox), 

95 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

asked me why I had done so, but the only reason I could give 
was that I was so short-sighted. 

We had a play-room at James's, where we used to practise 
the high jump, and there were some boys who could clear 
a jump higher than themselves. In this room stood a large 
blackboard, upon which all the names of the boys who had 
been at James's were carved, with the year they came and 
the year they left. 

The cricket match between Eton and Winchester was 
played in alternate years at either school. When the match 
took place at Eton, the band of the Life Guards or the 
" Blues " would play on the ground, where there was always 
a large attendance of visitors, including a great number of 
ladies. But it was never so fine a sight as the Eton and 
Harrow match at Lord's. At one Winchester match I remem^ 
ber seeing Miss Evans (George Eliot), who had come as the 
guest of one of the masters, and whose presence created quite 
a sensation. 

Once at Lord's, during the Eton and Harrow match, I 
was invited on to the drag of a friend of mine named C. N. 
Ridley, who was in my own division, where I had an excellent 
lunch, washed down by champagne. Ridley was a good- 
looking bby, with fair, curly hair and blue eyes, and his 
two sisters, who were exquisitely dressed on this occasion 
in light blue satin dresses with white lace, were considered 
remarkable beauties in London. They were quite young 
and very fair, like their brother, with the most lovely blue 
eyes of the shade of the myosotis. They might often be 
seen in the season riding in the Park, and were greatly ad- 
mired by the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VIL, 
who invited them to Marlborough House. Unhappily, both 
these beautiful girls and their brother were consumptive, 
and I heard that they all three died of consumption not very 
long afterwards. 

In those days, the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's was 
a far more pleasant function than it has since become. 
Only people interested in Eton or Harrow were there, and 
a good view of the game could easily be obtained. Now- 

96 



A ** Scrap" 

adays people go who do not know one school from the other, 
and the whole space is reserved for the M.C.C., so that if you 
do not happen to be a member, you cannot see the game at 
all. One constantly hears people say at Lord's now : — 

" I don't know anything about cricket and care less, but 
I have come to see the ladies' toilettes." 

In the old days this was not so. Lord's has certainly not 
improved since.* 

The boys at James's used often to go into the pantry, 
where William, the butler, would give them a glass of claret, 
and water Mr. James's wine well for him afterwards. Often 
the butler would exclaim : " Ha ! spider up there ! " and 
while we were looking for it, he watered the claret. It was 
in the butler's pantry that I had the only fight I ever had 
at Eton, the day before I left for good. My opponent was 
the Hon., afterwards Lord, Henry Vane-Tempest, a son of 
the Marquis of Londonderry, who was a little lower down 
in the school than I was. I don't think either of us really 
wanted to fight, but we were egged on by others whose 
respective parts we had taken in a quarrel, and after a very 
short " scrap," which I got the best of, we shook hands and 
made friends. When I went down to Eton again, I met 
Vane-Tempest at my tutor's, and he told me that he was 
then leaving to enter the " Blues." He has since joined the 
majority, quite young in life. 



* The Eton Eleven, during the four years I was there, was composed as 
follows : 

1867 : C. R. Alexander (captain), C. I. Thornton, W. H. Walrond, H. M. 
Walter, W. C, Higgins, C. J. Ottaway, W. F. Tritton, M. Horner, W. H. 
Hay, E. Wormald, P. Currey. Match drawn. 

1868 : C. I. Thornton (captain), H. M. Walter, W. C. Higgins, C. J. Ottaway, 
W. F. Tritton, W. H. Hay, P. Currey, Hon. G. Harris, J. Maude, S. E. Butler, 
G. H. Longman. Harrow beat Eton by seven wickets. 

1869 : W. C. Higgins (captain), G. H. Longman, A. S. Tabor, F. W. Rhodes, 

F. Pickering, J. P. Rodger, Lord CUfton, C. J. Ottaway, M. Maude, Hon. 

G. Harris, E. Butler. Eton won by an innings and nineteen runs. 

1870 : Hon. G. Harris (captain), G. H. Longman, A. S. Tabor, F. W. Rhodes, 
F. Pickering, J. P. Rodger, Lord CHfton, G. H. Cammell, M. A. ToUemacue, 
A. F. Ridley, Hon. A. Lyttelton. Eton won by twenty-one runs. 

97 7 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Of the boys at James's, I may mention that Sir John 
Lister-Kaye married Miss Yznaga, an American lady, one 
of two sisters celebrated for their beauty and toilettes in 
Paris, where I often met them in society. Sir John was a 
gentleman in attendance on the late King Edward VII. 
Lord Mandeville, who was in the Grenadier Guards, and 
afterwards became Duke of Manchester, married the other 
sister. Cecil Lister-Kaye married the sister of the Duke of 
Newcastle, who was himself at Eton. Cecil Lister-Kaye 
told me recently that his son was at Eton, and that he often 
went down to see him. He, no doubt, on these occasions, 
thinks with some regret of the happy days of his youth at 
James's. I have come across some of those who were with 
me at Eton in quite unexpected places. For instance, I met 
the present Earl of Northbrook in Bombay. He was on his 
way to visit his uncle, then Viceroy of India, and had come 
to Bombay, he told me, to buy Arab horses. He was in the 
same division with me at Eton, and afterwards served in 
the Rifle Brigade and Grenadier Guards. Although I may 
have forgotten many of my schoolfellows at Eton, I can 
never forget those who were in my division. Among them was 
Henry de Vere Vane, then a very clever, fair-haired boy, whom 
I remember envying because he learned everji;hing so quickly. 
He was the late Lord Barnard, and inherited the Cleveland 
estates on succeeding to this title. I had been told that in 
the hall of Raby Castle, his country-seat, a fire had been 
lighted two hundred years ago and had never been extin- 
guished since. But Lord Barnard informed me that this is 
a legend, and sent me an account of a similar one : — 

" Fire kept in for two hundred years. 

*' One of the loneliest spots in England, where there are 
only four cottages in an area of thirty thousand acres, was 
described at Brampton (Cumberland) Revision Court. The 
Conservative agent, Mr. Mawson, said he had visited the 
farm, which was situated on a remote fell between Bewcastle 
and Haltwhistle, on the border of Northumberland. Members 

98 



^a:- t 




The Duke of Rutland 



ITofacep. 



Lord Newlands 

of the farmer's family had lived in this particular cottage for 
six hundred years, and there was a tradition that the kitchen 
fire had never been out for two hundred years. The claimant 
slept in a bedroom eight feet square. There was a child 
there that had not seen another child for two years." 

Another who was in my division was the Hon. V. A. 
Parnell, a good-looking boy, with black hair with a blueish 
reflection in it, and fine eyes. He was a good cricketer and 
clever in school. At times, when we were up to Mr. Thac- 
keray, Parnell, as he reminded me recently, would, faute de 
mieux a jaire, be engaged in shinning matches with a boy 
who sat next to him called Dobson. The latter was a very 
good-humoured fellow, who retaliated without losing his 
temper, though at times he could with difficulty refrain from 
betraying the pain which he endured so stoically with a 
smiling face. 

The present Duke of Rutland, then Henry F. B. Manners, 
was at Eton with me, but higher up in the school, and if 
my memory does not deceive me, was in the Boats when in 
the Fifth Form. 

The present Lord Newlands, then known as J. H. C. Hozier, 
was very high up in the school, and I can remember when 
he was in my tutor's division, as the latter used to say 
how clever he was, and he frequently came to the pupil- 
room at James's. Mr. James would often tell us about those 
who were up to him, but it was rarely that he bestowed 
praise on any boy. 

When Doyne left Eton, I had his room, which commanded 
a view of the fine lime-trees, which in the summer looked 
very charming. On the wall hard by the boys used to stand 
or sit to criticize all the people who passed along the road 
running through Eton. This must have been a rather 
trying ordeal for some of the latter, for I remember that I 
used to find it a very trying experience when I happened 
to be late for chapel, particularly when I first came to Eton, 
to be obliged to run the gauntlet of a double row of boys, 
who never failed to pass remarks on everyone. The choir 

99 7* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

at Eton, which was the same as that of St. George's Chapel 
at Windsor, was a very good one, and one of the boys who 
sang in it, named Hancock, was paid, I was told, one hundred 
and fifty pounds a year. Hancock sang occasionally the 
solo part in Mendelssohn's anthem, " O, for the wings of a 
dove," in a marvellous manner, his high notes being won- 
derfully clear ; but his voice lacked expression, and, as boys 
and girls generally regard certain things purely from an 
aesthetic point of view, the impression it made upon us 
was one rather of surprise than of admiration. Some of us 
used to go on Sundays to St. George's, Windsor, and sit in 
the organ loft, where Dr. Elvey, who was a remarkably 
fine organist, played most beautifully. 

After Dr. Hornby became Head Master, the custom of 
giving leaving books was abolished. Personally, I regretted 
this innovation, not because I did not receive any, but 
because I liked to make presents to my friends who were 
leaving Eton ; and the expense was a small one, to which, 
I am sure, none of our parents objected. 

* Most of us look back upon our school days as the happiest 
part of our lives, for, to the schoolboy, the cares and anxieties 
which weigh upon us as we grow older are unknown, and, 
given good health, an Eton boy's life ought to hepai' excellence 
the very sum . of earthly happiness. Lord Rathdonnell, 
late of the Scots Greys, who, when at Eton, as McClintock- 
Bunbury, stroked the Eight at Henley, and excelled at 
football and at most games, besides being very high up in 
the school and very popular, wrote to me some years ago, 
saying that the years he spent at Eton were by far the hap- 
piest of his life, and that he always looked back to them 
with intense pleasure. The Captain of the Boats at that 
time was Edwards-Moss, now a baronet. Horace Ricardo 
(now Colonel Ricardo, C.V.O.), whom I remember quite 
well, was then in the Monarch, and his brother Cecil rowed 
in the Victory and was Captain of the Boats in 1871. After 
leaving Eton, both brothers entered the Grenadier Guards, 
and each of them commanded a battalion before retiring from 
the Service. I remember that Doyne, who was never high 

100 



An Old Boy on Eton of To-day 

up in the school and for whom Latin and Greek were some- 
what of a torture, telling me years afterwards that he looked 
back with regret to the happy days he had spent at Eton, 
which, all things considered, were perhaps the happiest of 
his life. Yet Doyne was not one of those who had anj^ 
trouble in after life ; on the contrary, he had everything 
which a man could possibly desire, besides enjoying good 
health. But the joyous, irresponsible days of school life 
were gone for ever, and, as he confessed to me, he would only 
too gladly have returned to them and lived them over again. 
In regard to Eton at the present day, I heard not long 
ago from an old schoolfellow, the late Colonel Sir Josceline 
Bagot, a distinguished officer of the Guards and author, who 
had had a boy there, and who wrote as follows : — 

" It all seems much the same, though, to my mind, 
not improved in some ways. They have got more 
room certainly, but, for such a big place as it has become, 
I think the traditional freedom of the boys is overdone 
altogether. Much too much importance is given to 
boys in ' Pop,' and allowing them and Captains of 
Houses to smack boys with canes for certain offences 
more or less officially is, to my mind, a great mistake, 
and starts the rotten system of many public schools 
of ' monitors,' ' prefects,' etc. No boys should have 
that power, and it is much worse for them to have it 
than for the boys who get smacked. It all comes from 
the masters thinking themselves too grand to swish 
boys as in the old days ; and the Head Master smacks 
them on rare occasions with a stick, whereupon they 
put on two pairs of trousers, etc., and merely laugh at 
it and him, and they barely touch their hats at all to 
the masters. They all smoke now to a great extent, 
far more than we ever did, and, though the Head Master 
is wild about it, he is powerless to do anything sensible 
to stop it ; and some of these rich Jew boys and foreigners 
have far too m,uch money and spoil things. If I were 
Head Master, I wouldn't have them at the school at 

lOI 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1S60-1912 

all. I was next to Lyttelton in school for a year or so, 
and like him, but he has no respect and control at all 
for such a position. Still, if drawbacks have crept in, 
it is still the best school in the world." 

As time goes on, one hears everywhere, and always in a 
louder whisper, the serious, dangerous word, " decadence." 
But let us allow the evil question whether our culture is 
really going to ground to rest, and rather attempt a very naive 
example : Suppose a true son of classical Greece — Socrates, 
for instance — were conducted in a dream into the midst of 
our modern culture. He would look with amazement at 
the marvellous means of locomotion, the production of the 
factories, the luxurious comfort of private houses, the magni- 
ficence of our theatres and so forth ; but the question whether 
we ought to be proud and happy he would answer in his 
usual way : — 

" In my country I knew Pericles and heard the dramas of 
Sophocles. I knew Alcibiades and saw Phidias at work, and 
my pupil was Plato. Now show me your living masters." 

The next day Socrates would relate ; — 

" I dreamt this night I was in Persia. Everything is 
greater there than you can imagine. Immensely great are the 
treasures, the armies and navies, the towns and houses, the 
machinery employed. In short, everything is inconceivably 
great ; only the people are very small. ..." 



102 



CHAPTER IX 

Lady Grace Stopford — Tipperary in 1870 — Robbed at Punches- 
town Races — I get my own back 

JUST after I left Eton, in 1870, I went over to Ireland 
to stay with, my friend Doyne, who lived in Countj?- 
Wexford, and had a fine estate near the sea, about 
half an hour's walk from the beach. His mother and sister 
lived with him, and he and I rode about his property and 
amused ourselves very well, though he had no near neigh- 
bours, except the Earl of Courtown and his family. The 
eldest son, Viscount Stopford, who had been with us at Eton, 
was away at the time, though his sister, Lady Grace Stop- 
ford, was there. One day we called, and were received by 
Lady Grace, who was the only one of the family at home. 
After shaking hands with her, Doyne said : — 

" I wanted to show my friend the fairest young lady in 
the county." 

At which compliment she blushed and replied : — 
" I am afraid he will be much disappointed." 
" On the contrary," I observed, " I am agreeably sur- 
prised." 

She then inquired if I knew her brother, and I told her 
that we were at Eton together. Lady Grace was a girl of 
about sixteen, with a lovely complexion, blue eyes and 
regular features. Her hair was of a reddish tint, similar to 
that which one sees in certain pictures by Correggio, and 
particularly in one in the Liechtenstein Gallery in Vienna, 
the face of which also bore a resemblance to hers. In her 
manner she appeared somewhat stiff, and more like the 

103 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

English than the Irish, who are generally so free and easy. 
But then Lady Grace always spent the season in London, 
and lived most of her time in England. Her brother, Lord 
Stopford, now Earl of Courtown, was in the Grenadier 
Guards, and had lately joined his regiment. 

Mrs. Doyne was a charming old lady, and her daughters 
had delightful manners and were exceedingly pleasant in 
every way. While I was with them, Mrs. Doyne told me 
that she and her family had received an invitation to Kil- 
larney, and asked me to go with them, which I did with 
great pleasure. The house we stayed at was a fine one, very 
prettily situated near the Lake of Killarney, and the weather 
being beautiful and very hot, it was very pleasant to go 
on the lake and visit the different sights in the neighbour- 
hood. I was delighted with the scenery of the lake and 
the various waterfalls in the woods, some of the views being 
exquisitely lovely. One day, when Doyne and I were riding 
on donkeys on the rugged hills near the lake, a bare-footed 
Irish gu'l came up and spoke to us in Irish, showing her 
beautiful teeth. She had very black eyes and black hair 
falling loosely over her shoulders, and her legs, like her feet, 
were bare. She could not speak a word of English, but 
Doyne made her understand him somehow by means of 
gestures. 

Killarney gave me the impression that I was in Italy. 
There were so many bare-legged boys and girls walking 
about, and the scenery was more like that of the south of 
Europe than the British Isles ; while the almost tropical 
heat we were experiencing just then completed the illusion. 
One day it rained very heavily, so Doyne and I went to the 
Hotel Victoria, where an American, who was playing billiards, 
said to us : — 

" I guess I shall have to say that I have seen the Lake 
of Killarney from this billiard-room window, as I am leaving 
early to-morrow morning." 

The tutor of a young fellow staying at the hotel told me 
that I must have Scottish blood in my veins, because I 
walked so carefully, as if calculating every step I took, while 

104 



Tipperary in 1870 

an Irishman walked without the least hesitation. I noticed 
that the good looks of the Irish people were found more in 
the lower classes than in those above them. Some of the 
bare-legged girls whom I saw were quite pretty, with some- 
thing of the Spanish type of beauty about them. Their 
hands and feet were usually small, whereas those of some of 
the women of the upper classes were of very generous pro- 
portions. Everywhere I went I met with a " gemuthlichkeit,'" 
which is not to be found in England, go where one may ; 
the Irish are so friendly and jolly, even if one does not know 
them. 

On leaving Killarney, we went to Tipperary, and stayed 
at Cashel, with the Dean, Dr. MacDonnell, who told me 
that there were sixteen roads leading to the town, on each 
of which a murder had recently been committed. These 
crimes had, however, been committed for political reasons, 
for if a man did not meddle with politics, he might travel 
along these same roads at night with his pockets bulging 
with gold in perfect safety. The Dean, who afterwards 
became a Canon of Peterborough,* had a pretty daughter, 
a very amiable and clever girl, who is now the wife of Sir 
Shirley Salt. 

I also stayed at Wells, an estate belonging to Mr. Mervyn 
Doyne, my friend's elder brother, who had married Lady 
Frances Fitzwilliam, the eldest daughter of Earl Fitzwilliam. 
The house was a very imposing one, built in the Elizabethan 
style and standing in the midst of extensive grounds. Lady 
Francis Doyne was a nice-looking and extremely pleasant 

* A propos of Peterborough, I once heard a good story about a Bishop of 
Peterborough — Dr. Magee, I thiiik — which was told me by my tutor 
at Eton. Some people, who had never seen him, were very anxious to hear 
him preach and therefore went early in the morning to the cathedral to 
secure good seats. A man showed them over the cathedral, where they 
retained the best seats they could find, and, on leaving, one of the party gave 
their cicerone, whom they took for the verger, five shillings. The latter 
put the money in his pocket, and then to their astonishment said : " I am 
not the verger, but the Bishop of Peterborough himself. However, I shall 
keep the five shillings all the same, for I have found you a good pew, and what 
I have i-eceived I shall give to the poor." 

105 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

woman. At dinner one evening she told me the following 
rather interesting story : — 

" I happened to dream one night in town, just before we 
were leaving for Ireland, that I had lost my dressing-case. 
Therefore, before starting, I told my maid to take particular 
care of it during the journey. However, when we arrived 
in Dublin, I left her in charge of the dressing-case for two or 
three minutes at the station, and somehow she must have 
put it down for an instant, since, on my returning to her, 
she exclaimed : ' Oh, my lady, the dressing-case is gone ! ' 
My husband had all the cars which were leaving the station 
stopped, but my dressing-case was nowhere to be found. 
He telegraphed to Scotland Yard, in London, but with no 
success whatever, and I have never recovered it to this day. 
I had at the time eight thousand pounds' worth of jewellery 
in it, besides valuable stones belonging to my ancestors, 
which can never be replaced." 

Speaking of London, Lady Fanny said : — 

" We had a house in Mount Street for the season, and one 
evening, when we were giving a dinner-party, a band began 
playing outside our house. It played rather well, so I sent 
my footman out to the conductor to ask him to continue 
playing all the time we were at dinner, and to give him a 
sovereign if he would do so. But the footman brought back 
the sovereign, and told me that the conductor refused to 
play under five pounds." 

Lady Fanny also said : — 

" People soon forget one in London. As a young girl, I 
lived with my father in Grosvenor Square, but after my 
marriage I was not in London for two years. When I 
returned to town, I found that everyone had forgotten me 
entirely." 

Earl Fitzwilliam, Lady Fanny's father, used to give two 
big dinners in town to his tenants, to each of which fifty 
guests were invited. At one of these dinners the service 
was entirely of silver ; at the other entirely of gold. 

I was invited with Jim Doyne to stay at the Shelbourne 
Hotel, as the guest of Earl Fitzwilliam, for the Punchestown 

io6 



Robbed at Punchestown Races 

Races. The first day of the races it poured with rain, and 
Jim and I went to the course on an Irish car. On the way 
he chaffed a man and a girl on our car whom he had never 
seen before, who were engaged in a flirtation, and said to the 
girl aloud : — 

" Don't listen to the tales he is telling you ; they are all 
lies." 

The girl blushed, and the man, looking very much annoyed, 
answered : — 

" She knows I am telling her the truth." 

There was a great rush to get into the stand, and Jim and 
I got separated. I tendered an English five-pound note for 
admission, but the man issuing the tickets said : — 

" I don't take English notes, only Irish ones." 

I told him I had a ticket for the Marquis of Drogheda's 
private stand, but he said that I must first pay the sovereign 
entrance to the other. Suddenly, a man came forward and 
said : — 

" I will change your note, if you will give it me or come 
with me." 

I followed him through the pouring rain to a tent, where 
he showed me three cards, which he threw on a table, saying : — 

" I'll bet you a fiver you don't name the court card." 

" But I don't wish to bet," I replied. 

" You must play," rejoined he, " or I'll keep your money." 

I looked round for a policeman, but there was not one 
anywhere near, and, while my eyes were off him, the man 
disappeared. I tried to find him all day, but without success. 

In the evening, when I returned to the Shelbourne Hotel, 
Lord Fitzwilliam's sons, Thomas* and Charles Fitzwilliam, 
Lord Aberdour, Jim and myself dined together in a private 

* The Hon. Thomas Fitzwilliam, who was then in the 10th Hussars, married 
Elgiva Kinglake, whose brother was at Eton with me. She was very pretty 
and a remarkably good rider, but she died quite early in life, and her husband 
did not long survive her. She was a great friend of Mary, Duchess of Hamil- 
ton, and I remember once, at a meet of the Devon and Somerset Staghounds 
on the Exmoor hills, being much struck by the beauty of the Duchess, who 
was present with Elgiva Fitzwilliam, for they always hunted with these 
hounds in those days. 

107 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

room. Lord Aberdour, who is now Earl of Morton, said : — 
" I was making a bet with a man when someone nearly 
knocked me down and took away my watch and chain, and 
in the confusion of the moment I could not discover who it 
was." 

" I did not come off any better," remarked Charles 
Fitzwilliam, who had been at Eton and was now in the 
" Blues," "for I was paid a bet with half a five-pound and 
half a ten-pound note pinned together." 

The next day, when it rained again, I went to the races, 
and walked about, keeping a sharp look-out for the man who 
had stolen my " fiver." Presently I caught sight of him, and 
going up to a constable, inquired if he could arrest a man 
on suspicion, which he said he could. The fellow was 
performing the three-card trick at the time, and was promptly 
arrested. He, of course, loudly protested his innocence, 
saying : — 

" It was not me, but the Scotsman who did it, and he 
ain't here to-day. I don't know the young gentleman at 
all." 

The constable asked me if I were quite sure that this was 
the man, to which I replied in the affirmative. He was then 
marched off, and a head constable came and took down my 
affirmation, which I signed. The three-card gentleman 
called out to me : — 

" I'll give you twenty pounds if you'll let me off," and 
the constable, overhearing this, said : — 

" Now he has confessed to taking the note ; I see it's all 
right." 

During dinner at the " Shelbourne " that night I told my 
friends of my adventure, when they all said : — 

" You must prosecute the man for the good of the public." 

I decided to follow their advice, and, about a month later, 
I went with Jim to Naas, where the fellow was to be tried, 
and where, as Jim happened to know the county court 
judge. Baron de Robeck, we were given seats on the Bench. 
When the prisoner was brought in, he at once pleaded guilty, 
upon which the judge sentenced him to repay the five 

io8 



I get my own back 

pounds, which he did, and to three months' hard labour. 
He was also ordered to pay the costs of the prosecution, 
which came to as much as five pounds, but these I refused 
to accept. 

At Naas we lunched with the Duke of Leinster, who 
had been at Eton with us, and was then with his militia 
regiment. He was much interested in my adventure, and 
glad to hear of the result. At the station a man came up to 
me, and telling me he was the prisoner's solicitor, asked me 
to give him some money for persuading his client to plead 
guilty. But when I spoke to Jim about it, he answered : — 
" Tell him to go to the devil." 

■ And the man of law, over-hearing the remark, took 
himself off without more ado. 

I stayed some weeks longer with Jim Doyne,* when I 
went to London for my " exam." for the Army. 

* Jim Doyne, in later years, bore some resemblance to the late King 
Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, and at Pratt's, one evening, the late Duke 
of Beaufort walked up to him, and, holding out his hand, said : " I wish 
you good evening, sir." Doyne felt very flattered at the mistake, which, 
however, the Duke at once discovered. Nevertheless, when meeting my 
friend afterwards, he would always address him as " Sir " for amusement, 
and Doyne, who had a gift for repartee, would give an appropriate reply. 



109 



CHAPTER X 

Dieppe under Prussian Rule — A Toilette by Worth — A Confirnaed 
Gambler 

DURING the Franco-German War, while I was at Eton, 
my parents remained in Paris, and though my father 
left the city during the Commune, my mother stayed until 
the very last, when she was persuaded to follow him. To- 
wards the end of the war I joined my parents at Dieppe, and 
saw the Prussians enter the town, when eighteen soldiers 
were billeted on the owner of the house we lived in. Madame 
Gaillard, an American lady, the young wife of General 
Gaillard, who was afterwards appointed to look after Marechal 
Bazaine when a prisoner, was with us at Dieppe. She was 
a very pretty woman, and she and the Baronne van Havre 
usually went with my mother to the afternoon concerts. I 
took lessons on the violin from the chief violinist, whose 
name was Lamoury. His brother was one of the first violon- 
cello players in France, and played in the orchestra at the 
Conservatoire in Paris. Lamoury told me that he had 
begun to learn the violin too late in life to be a virtuoso on 
that instrument, as he had not begun to play it until he was 
fourteen, whereas you ought to start playing at the age of 
seven in order to be anything remarkable as a violinist. 

The English Consul at Dieppe was a Mr. Chapman, and 
there were several English residents. Among them were 
Edward Blount, a friend of my father, who had been at 
school with Gambetta and spoke French almost better 
than he did English, and a Major Boland, from Bath, who 
had married a French lady, the sister of Jules Simon, one of 
the Ministers then in power in Paris. Boland was in the 

no 



Dieppe under Prussian Rule 

habit of depreciating the French Army and praising the 
Prussians in every way. Owing to his having lived in the 
same house as his brother-in-law for many years before the 
war, he had had, although an Englishman, opportunities 
for ascertaining the real condition of the French 
Army. 

" I knew from the first," he would observe, " that the 
French would be defeated, and that Bazaine was a traitor, 
who was playing into the hands of the Prussians all 
along." 

Jules Simon seemed to share his opinion of the state to 
which the Empire had reduced France by embarking in this 
disastrous war, for which she was unprepared, whereas 
Prussia had been preparing for it for many years. 

Dieppe is a very charming seaside resort in the summer 
months, and it was very pleasant to go to the Casino, where 
the band played of an afternoon, and listen to the orchestra, 
which in those days was excellent, as most of the performers 
came from Paris. The Casino was near the sea, and to sit 
there and watch the sea sparkling under the rays of the sun 
and the snow-white sails in the distance, bathed, as evening 
approached, in a rosy light, was to me a never-failing source 
of pleasure. At such an hour as this Time and Space seem 
to be eliminated. The incoming tide approaches with a 
gentle murmur. It encircles first one spot on the sands, 
then another ; rests for a moment, and then continues its 
advance. The sea is a symbol for us of Eternity and of our 
passing away. 

When the Uhlans entered Dieppe, followed by the Prussian 
infantry, the town was in a ferment, since no one knew 
what was going to follow. All kinds of rumours were afloat, 
and some people believed that a warship would bombard 
the town, if the invaders met with any resistance. The 
Germans requisitioned many things, with which the in- 
habitants were very reluctant to supply them, and ordered 
that all lights should be extinguished at 8 p.m., and that 
after 10 p.m. no one should leave his house. This condition 
of affairs naturally did not suit my father^, and he deter- 

III 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

mined to leave Dieppe at once. But this was a difficult 
matter, as to go by rail was nearly impossible, and by sea 
altogether out of the question. Finally we decided to 
hire a carriage and to start before daybreak, although we 
were very much afraid lest we should be stopped by the 
Prussians. We succeeded, however, in escaping detection 
and reached Dunkerque, where we took the train for Calais, 
and thence made our way to Boulogne. Here we stayed 
for some days at the Hotel des Bains, and then embarked 
for Folkestone, from which we proceeded to Brighton. 

At Brighton, where my parents took a house facing the 
sea, and not far from the Old Pier, we found Captain and 
Mrs. Berkeley, who had taken a house for the season in 
Regency Square; Mrs. Charles Woodforde, an aunt of my 
father, who was staying there with her daughter, and Sophia 
Kinglake, a sister of the author of " Eothen," whom 
Thackeray once described as the cleverest woman he had 
ever met in his life. One day, I remember calling with my 
mother upon her, when she told us that she was knitting a 
scarf for John Ardagh, who afterwards became General Sir 
John Ardagh, and died some years ago. Shortly after we 
arrived, a very pretty, graceful and beautifully-dressed girl 
entered the room. She was a Miss Gordon, daughter of a 
General Gordon, and, in the course of conversation, said to 
me : — 

" I always get my dresses from Worth, and sometimes 
I go and stay with his family at their country-place in France. 
I generally stop with them from three weeks to a month, 
and return to England with a fine lot of dresses. Worth 
would be horrified were he to see me to-day, because I am 
wearing gloves which do not match my dress. Once I put 
on grey gloves with a costume of an unusual colour, upon 
which he told me that if I ever did so again, he would make 
for me no more. So, you see, I have to study his taste 
in the matter of toilettes most carefully." 

I inquired whether Worth charged very high prices for 
his confections. 

" It is according to what you consider high," she replied. 

112 



A Toilette by Worth 

*' He charges from forty pounds for a dress, and will not 
make one under that price ; but it is always perfectly finished 
and lined with silk. For ball-dresses he charges more. I 
get both my morning-gowns and ball-toilettes from him, 
for I consider that he is the only man who can make dresses 
which are worth wearing." 

I asked if Laferri^re were not very good, as I had heard 
so much about him in Paris. 

" Yes, he is," she said, " but Worth I consider still 
better." 

Miss Gordon was a girl of about eighteen, with a wonder- 
fully clear complexion, brown hair, blue eyes, and rather 
good features. She had also a beautiful figure, for which 
reason it must have been quite a pleasure for a dressmaker 
to make for her. She was wearing on this occasion a blue 
costume, with a good deal of passementerie on it, and very 
pretty buttons in enamel, a white petticoat with flounces 
of lace, stockings a jour, and shoes with Louis Quinze 
heels. Her hat matched her dress, and the ensemble would 
have been a dream, had not her gloves, which were brown, 
spoiled — as she herself admitted — an otherwise perfect 
toilette. 

While at Brighton, I used frequently to go on the Pier 
with my mother to listen to the band, which, however, 
played very badly. Captain and Mrs. Berkeley often came 
there too, and would sit with us until my father came 
to fetch us to lunch. Captain Dorrien was also at Brighton 
at this time, and occasionally some of the old society of 
Homburg would meet on the Pier, and talk over their 
experiences at roulette and trente-et-quarante 

" I say, Fred," inquired Dorrien one day of my father, 
" how about your infallible system ? What was it ? Let 
me see : one louis d cheval between zero and two, one 
between twelve and fifteen, one between twenty-six and 
twenty-nine, and one between thirty-two and thirty-five. 
Isn't that it ? " 

" Yes, my dear fellow," answered my father, " and you 
double the amount if you lose." 

113 8 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" Oh ! " exclaimed Berkeley, " that game is a martingale, 
and it nearly broke me." 

" Then, old fellow," said my father, " you didn't play it 
the right way." 

" Oh, yes, I did, and in very much the right way, for I 
lost all I had. ..." 

" I wish I were at Homburg to try it again," continued 
my father. 

" You would only lose again," said Berkeley. 

" I am sorry that I ever played there at all," said 
Dorrien. 

" So am I," exclaimed Berkeley, " but there is an attrac- 
tion there that somehow one cannot resist." 

" I feel I should win if I played at Monte Carlo," said my 
father. 

" You always felt like that at Homburg," remarked 
Dorrien. " You said, if you remember, one evening, that 
you felt like winning, and you lost heavily." 

" But I won afterwards — three hundred louis." 

" My dear fellow, you forget how much you lost. You 
can talk like that to people who know nothing about the 
game, but as for me, who have lost thirty thousand 
pounds at it, you cannot make me believe that white is 
black." 

" Can't I ? " said my father, laughing. 

" No, you can't, and you are foolish to try to make your- 
self believe that you can ever win at that game." 

" I agree with you entirely," observed Berkeley. 

" I always hope to win back what I have lost," said my 
father. 

" That you will never do at roulette aiiu trente-et- 
quarante," said Dorrien. 

" Don't you play at all now then ? " asked my father. 
" Yes, at baccarat and the Stock Exchange." 
" That is as bad," remarked my father. 
" I am not sure it isn't worse," said Dorrien, laughing. 
" Quite as bad," exclaimed Berkeley, " but I do the 
same thing." 

"4 



A Confirmed Gambler 

" I shall have a try this winter at Monte Carlo," said my 
father. 

" You have had one lesson ; why do you want to burn 
your fingers again ? " asked Dorrien. 

" If you do," remarked Berkeley, " vous y perdrez vos pas, 
mon cher ami." 

And then they talked about other things. 



115 



CHAPTER XI 

The Princess von Metternich — The Lady of the Luxembourg 
Gardens 

PARIS was very dull in the way of entertainments and 
parties after the Commune, and people spoke of 
hardly anything but the siege. Mrs. Healy, an aunt of 
Viscount Dillon, who lived in the same house as my parents 
in the Rue d'Albe, her appartement being on the entresol, 
had remained there throughout the siege and the Commune, 
and told us that she had always contrived to get everything 
she wanted in the way of eatables, though she had had to 
pay an enormously high price for them ; twenty francs 
a pound, for instance, for butter, which she obtained as 
well as eggs and meat, and consequently was never obliged 
to dine off a mouse or any delicacy of that description, like 
most of the people in Paris. Theobald, Lord Dillon, often 
came to see his aunt, and one day he related to us how he 
had become acquainted with Sims Reeves, and how he had 
been the means of the latter continuing his studies at Milan 
as a singer. It was entirely through Lord Dillon's generosity 
that Sims Reeves became so well known, as he had advanced 
him a large sum of money. Albani was also first brought 
into notice in England by Lord Dillon, who was so enchanted 
with her beautiful voice that he soon made known to every- 
body the " star " he had discovered. Albani was a frequent 
guest at his beautiful country-seat, Ditchley Park, for he 
and Lady Dillon not only admired her most exquisite voice, 
but her very charming personality as well. 

The last time I met Lord Dillon was on the pier at 
Brighton, when I happened to be on leave from Aldershot, 

ii6 



The Princess von Metternich 

where my regiment was then stationed ; and, I remember, 
I introduced Lord Headley to him, at the former's request. 
The two noblemen discussed politics, upon which subject 
they did not agree. Later the same day, I introduced two 
young officers to Lord Dillon, as he told me he was very 
fond of young men, he himself being then an old man. The 
officers in question were both Old Etonians and attached 
to my regiment. One was Richard Sutton, a son of Sir 
Richard Sutton, who died before his father ; the Other, 
the present Sir Charles E. C. Hartopp, a nephew of the Duke 
of Norfolk, who had just been staying at Arundel with his 
uncle. 

I happened to meet Whitehead, a correspondent of the 
Daily Telegraph, who had remained in Paris during the 
siege. I asked him whether he was not at all alarmed at 
the time, to which he replied that he did not know what fear 
meant, and had never been afraid of anything in his life. 

I was still at Eton, but came to Paris for my holidays, 
and one evening went to a ball, at which I recollect the 
Princess von Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador, 
was present, and that she left after remaining only half 
an hour. Sir Edward Malet, who was then First Secretary 
at the British Embassy, led the cotillion. It was a terribly 
dull affair, and I was quite glad to get away. Evidently, 
the Princess von Metternich saw at a glance what it was 
like, and only waited until her carriage returned, or no 
doubt she would have left even sooner. The Princess 
spoke English just like an Englishwoman, and when she 
spoke in German interlarded every sentence with French 
words, as all the Austrian nobility do. She had plenty of 
esprit, and when I saw her in recent years in Vienna, she 
always used to make use of the late Baron Nathan de Roth- 
schild to assist her in collecting money for the poor of the 
city, and — some people were malicious enough to say — for 
herself as well. She had such a way of asking for charitable 
contributions that she scarcely ever met with a refusal, and 
never indeed from " her little Jew," as she was accustomed 
to call Baron Nathan. 

117 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

After I left Eton, I returned to Paris, and, as it was 
summer, I often walked in the Luxembourg Gardens, where 
it was very pleasant to sit beneath the trees and read a 
book. One day, I happened to be sitting near a fountain 
which contained some gold fish. On the same seat sat a 
young girl with fair hair, who appeared entirely absorbed 
in a book which she was reading, and from which she did 
not raise her eyes for a moment. I asked her what was 
the name of the novel in which she was so interested. She 
answered that it was not a novel at all, but a serious modern 
French work on philosophy. And she handed it to me. 
I was not a little curious to knov/ why she read such books, 
and questioned her on the matter, when she replied that 
they were the only ones capable of distracting her thoughts, 
and that, as her own life had been like a novel, she avoided 
such stories, for they usually reminded her of her own 
experiences, and made her sadder than ever. I inquired if 
she would mind letting me know her own history, and, at the 
same time, studied her more attentively than before. She 
was a fair girl, with blue eyes with long black eyelashes, a 
very clear complexion and long wavy hair. Her features 
were small and rather regular, and she had very fine teeth 
and a beautiful figure. She was dressed in deep mourning, 
and her petticoat was trimmed with Valenciennes lace, of 
which I could just catch a glimpse when she raised her 
tiny foot occasionally. She acceded to my request, and 
related to me the following story : — 

" I was living with my parents in the country, when an 
aunt of mine asked me to come to Paris, saying that she 
would have me taught dressmaking. On my arrival in 
Paris, I went to live with my aunt and became an appren- 
tice at a dressmaker's shop, which had a number of customers 
among the ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. One 
morning, when I was on my way to business, I noticed 
that a gentleman was following me, but it was not until 
some days later that I made his acquaintance, when he told 
me that he had fallen in love with me, and offered to furnish 
an appartement for me, and to give me three louis a day 

ii8 



The Lady of the Luxembourg Gardens 

to spend as I pleased. Soon afterwards I left my aunt, 
and not only did this gentleman carry out his promise, but 
gave me my own servants and carriage and horses. As 
I had not received very much education, I had various 
masters, one to teach me to speak and write French correctly, 
another for the piano, a third for singing. As for reading, 
I never had any taste for the rubbish which most girls affect, 
but studied the works of Racine, Corneille, Rousseau and 
Voltaire.* I gradually developed a passion for philosophy, 
and can say that I have read most of the works of the great 
philosophers, both ancient and modern, in French. I 
enjoyed my life thoroughly, and, as I was only sixteen and 
quite without experience of the world, I was foolish enough 
to believe that my good fortune would continue ; and it is 
needless to say that I took no thought for the future, but 
lived only for the present. My friend was a very wealthy 
Mexican and quite young ; perhaps a little older than you 
are, but not very much. He seemed perfectly devoted to 
me, satisfying all my caprices and spending a great deal of 
money on me, quite apart from what he gave me for myself. 
I was very fond of going to the Theatre-Fran9ais, where he 
would always take a box and accompany me. We also 
went very often to the Grand Opera, and occasionally to the 

* Voltaire believed sincerely in God, but no one nowadays even thinks 
of reading his correspondence, which shows us all his faults, his kindhearted- 
ness, his charity, and his other good qualities. One of the strongest features 
in Voltaire's character was his sense of friendship. Genonville, who took 
away his mistress. Mile. Livy, from him, remained his friend, and Voltaire 
laments his death in a poem of marvellous beauty, with all the warmth of 
truth. This poem and the one which follows it, les Vous et le Tu, in which 
also Mile. Livy is referred to, are two of his most beautiful poems. Of 
Rousseau, Grillparzer says : "I read les Confessions and am terrified 
to recognize myself in them." How Rousseau would have been surprised 
if someone had called him the most perfect egoist. He lived Avith the woman 
who was so devoted to him and never married her, although it would have 
been a great happiness to her to bear his name. Corneille, according to 
Grillparzer, was an excellent poet, and his first works were admirable, but 
his later ones show a steady decline from his early standard, which is difficult 
to explain, except perhaps after reading his tragedy, Feodora. In Grill- 
parzer's opinion, Racine was as great a poet as ever lived. 

119 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

smaller theatres, for the latter of which, however, I had but 
little taste. On Sundays, generally after I had been to Mass 
— for, notwithstanding my predilection for philosophy, I 
still retained a remnant of faith in the Catholic religion — 
I drove in the Bois de Boulogne, sometimes alone, at others 
accompanied by my friend. In every respect, my life was 
most enjoyable, and I had no cares of any kind. This state 
of affairs lasted for a year, during which my friend was most 
devoted to me, and we never had an angry word with each 
other. He was kindness itself in every conceivable way, 
while I was perfectly devoted to him. Suddenly, one day, 
when I had been out alone shopping, I saw on my return 
home a note addressed to me lying on the table in the salon. 
Recognizing my friend's handwriting, I tore it open imme- 
diately. It contained only a few lines, which, however, I 
shall never forget so long as I live. Indeed, so engraven on 
my mind are they, that, were I to forget everything else, I 
should never forget them ! " 

On saying this, she suddenly burst into tears, and sobbed 
so violently that it was not for some little time that she was 
able to continue. Then she said : — 

" You will forgive me, for my grief is almost too great for 
me to endure. Imagine my astonishment and dismay when 
I read this note, which had been hurriedly written : — 

" ' Ma cMrie, — Je suis force de partir immidiatement pour 
la Mexique ; je rCai pas mime le temps de venir te dire adieu.' ''^ 

" I could scarcely believe my own eyes, and read those 
lines again and again, sobbing all the while, and incapable 
of realizing what had happened. I had only a few hundred 
francs left, all the rest having been spent ; and, to make a 
long story short, I had very soon to leave my appartement 
and return to my aunt. I have been with her now a week, 
and I need not tell you how very hard I find it to return to 
work, for which I feel I am no longer fit. Besides, my aunt 

* " My darling, — I am obliged to start immediately for Mexico ; I have 
not even time to come to bid thee good-bye." 

120 



The Lady of the Luxembourg Gardens 

is continually reproaching me, and treats me much worse 
than she did before. I cannot stand it any longer. ..." 

At this point, she stopped and was silent for a while. Then 
she suddenly asked me if I could assist her as her friend had 
done, adding that she was not one of those girls who could 
love several men. I told her how I was situated, and she 
said she would come to a restaurant in the Quartier Latin 
with me and take some refreshment. We went, I remember, 
to some restaurant near the Luxembourg Gardens, and, when 
we were alone, she told me that it was a pity that I could not 
afford to make her my maitresse attitree, as she thought I 
might perhaps succeed in making her forget her Mexican. 
Although I did not aspire to have such warm blood in my 
veins, yet perhaps she liked the contrast. She wept bitterly, 
and when she left me, said : — 

" Vous avez beaucoup de coeur ; and, if I meet you again, 
it will be in three days' time in the Luxembourg Gardens. 
If I do not come, you will know that I have done as I told you 
before I should do — put an end to my existence. There is 
nothing else for me to do, and le hon Dieu me le pardonnera.^^ 

I went to the Luxembourg Gardens three days later, and 
sat on the same seat, but, though I waited until it grew dark, 
there was no sign of her. I returned to the Gardens every 
day for weeks and weeks afterwards, more out of habit than 
for any other reason, and thought of her and wondered what 
had become of her all the time I was there. I did not even 
know her Christian name, but I rather fancied it was Mariette. 
The consequence was that I was seized with a sudden fit of 
melancholy, which I was imprudent enough to give way to, 
and was continually reading Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen 
Werthers, until I felt convinced that I should end my life 
in the same way as she had done. For, though I never heard 
anything more about her, I made quite sure that she had 
acted as she had threatened she would. 

Shortly after this, I decided to go to Bonn on the Rhine, 
to study at the University ; and Miss Kathleen O'Meara, the 
author of " The Salon of Madame Mohl," who was a young 
girl at that time, gave me a letter to the wife of Professor 

121. 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Dr. Binz, a sister of General Salis-Schwabe. I was then very 
anxious to enter the Austrian Army, and tried very hard to 
do so. Through the kindness of Mr. Somerset Beaumont, of 
the Foreign Office, my request was put before Prince Richard 
von Metternich and Baron von Hiibner ; and the latter, who 
was at that time Ambassador in Paris, informed me, when I 
saw him at the Embassy, that I should have to become an 
Austrian subject. This was easy enough ; but the examina- 
tion was not, as since the War of 1866 it had been made much 
more severe. It was in pursuance of this intention to enter 
the Austrian Army that I made up my mind to study at the 
University at Bonn. My father was very much against my 
doing so, but I eventually prevailed upon him to let me go, 
though he warned me that I must put up with any evil conse- 
quences that might result from this coup de tite of mine. 



122 



CHAPTER XII 

Bonn — An Anecdote of Beethoven — The King's Hussars — The Howard Vyses 
— A German Professor on England — Domesticated Habits of German 
Girls — Professor Delbriick 

ON my arrival at Bonn, I stayed at the Hotel Rheineck, 
which commanded a splendid view of the distant 
mountains. Here I made the acquaintance of the late Mr. 
Ranyard, the celebrated astronomer, who told me that the 
well-known author " A. L. O. E." was his aunt. Mr. Ranyard 
was also stopping at the " Rheineck," and at the midday 
table d'hote sat next to a Frau Phillip, a German lady from 
Frankfurt, who was rather stout, but good-looking. He 
made love to her, and, though he spoke German very badly, 
she appeared to understand him. At four o'clock we used 
to sit out on the verandah of the hotel, which overlooked the 
Rhine, and take our coffee there, with an excellent Kuchen, 
for which Germany is famous. Some days after my arrival 
at Bonn, Ranyard, who was flirting with Frau Phillip, quite 
forgot that he had to catch the boat to Cologne, and missed 
it. He was quite in despair at this, as he had not enough 
money with him to stay any longer at Bonn. However, the 
proprietor of the hotel said he would lend him some, which 
he could repay him when he arrived in England. Ranyard 
accordingly arranged to stay on a day or two longer at Bonn, 
as the hotel-keeper was confiding enough to advance him 
£5. I mention this incident to show how kind Germans are 
at times, though, of course, there are exceptions everywhere. 
I called on Professor Dr. Binz and his wife, who lived in a 
pretty villa with a delightful garden attached to it. The 
latter's sister. Miss Salis-Schwabe, and her brother, who was 
an officer in the 7th Dragoon Guards, were staying with her 

123 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

on a visit, and I went for several rides with them. Miss 
Salis-Schwabe was a nice-looking girl, with a considerable 
fortune of her own, and lived chiefly in England. She 
afterwards married the late Sir Frank Lockwood, the well- 
known Q.C. ; and I was told by the Hon. Mrs. Henry 
Orde-Powlett, who knew her, that she was always very 
disappointed if her husband did not come home every day 
with fifty guineas as " refreshers " in his pocket. 

Frau Professor Binz told me that she knew of a Professor 
Dr. Andra, who had a pretty daughter, so that his house 
would be just the very one for me to live at; and I 
accordingly made arrangements to take rooms there, with 
board. 

Fraulein Margarethe Andra was a rather pretty girl, a 
blonde, with blue eyes, but she was, I thought, somewhat 
insipid, and very strait-laced. She was well read and a free- 
thinker, like her father, who never went to any church. 
Professor Dr. Andra was very clever, and, indeed, some 
people said he was the cleverest of the professors at Bonn 
University. I remember him telling me about his wife, 
whom he had recently lost. She knew, according to him, 
exactly what he was going to say before he opened his mouth, 
and had also foretold many events before there was a chance 
of their happening, in a marvellous manner. I asked Andra 
if he would not like to see his wife again. 

" No," he replied. " I loved her very much, but I have 
no desire to live again, and, what is more, I am sure that 
after this existence there is no other. And it is much better 
so." 

He lectured on Anthropology and Mineralogy, two sciences 
in which I took no interest. I attended the lectures of 
Geheimrath von Sybel, the famous historian, who. Dr. 
Andra said, was a Republican at heart, but pretended not 
to be, in order to keep in with Bismarck, who since 1870 had 
been all powerful in Germany. Von Sybel was one of the 
finest lecturers I ever heard. He contrived to make his 
subject most interesting, however dry it might otherwise 
have appeared ; and his lectures were always crowded with 

124 



An Anecdote of Beethoven 

students, whereas those of some of the other professors 
were attended by very few, as it was entirely optional which 
lectures the students at the University attended. 

Bonn is the birthplace of Beethoven, a fine statue of whom 
was erected in 1845 on the Poppelsdorfer Alice. Grillparzer 
writes in his diary for 1843 : — 

" The windows of my grandmother's house faced the 
courtyard of the dwelling of a peasant called Flehberger, who 
bore a bad name. This Flehberger had a very pretty 
daughter, called Lisa, whose reputation was also not of the 
best. Beethoven appeared to be much interested in the 
girl, and I can see him as he came up the little street, dragging 
his white handkerchief after him, until he came to a stop at 
Flehberger's house, where the frivolous beauty was standing 
on a wagon filled with hay, working with a pitchfork, and 
laughing the while. Beethoven stood silent and looked at 
her, until the girl, whose taste lay more in the direction of 
peasant boys, made him angry by rude words or by obsti- 
nately ignoring his presence. Then he walked away, but 
did not fail, the next time he passed that way, to stop and 
look into the courtyard. Indeed, his interest in the girl 
went so far that, when her father was arrested and put in 
prison for being concerned in a drunken brawl in the village, 
Beethoven endeavoured to rescue him, and narrowly escaped 
having to share the captivity of the man whom he had so 
unwisely protected." 

It is said that Beethoven wept when his "Overture to 
Leonora " was first played at Vienna, where it met with no 
success. He only passed his youth at Bonn, and then went 
to Vienna, where the Archduke Rudolf, Prince Kinsky and 
Prince Lobkowitz gave him an annuity of 4,000 florins 
(nearly £350) for life, in order that he might devote his time 
entirely to music, free from all financial cares. The fact that 
the same provision was never made for Mozart, who was an 
Austrian by birth, makes one think of the proverb : " Nemo 
propheta in patriae Grillparzer, Austria's greatest poet, 
wrote the funeral speech read at Beethoven's tomb in Vienna 
on March 27th, 1827, and on May 1st, 1880, a statue to his 

125 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

memory was erected there, near the garden of the Hof Burg, 
on the Ringstrasse. 

Captain Horrocks, whom my father knew very well, was 
then living at Bonn with his family. His brother held an 
appointment at the Court of the Grand Duke of Hesse. 
Captain Horrocks once wrote a three-volume novel, which 
my mother tried to read, but said that she never could get 
beyond the first volume. She lent the first volume of the 
book to several of her friends, but not one of them ever asked 
for the second and third. When I mentioned Captain 
Horrocks's name to my mother, she said : — 

" When I think of him, I cannot imagine how he could have 
written such a dull book. I have never yet come across any 
one who has had the courage to read the whole of his novel." 
Horrocks was, nevertheless, an amusing man, who had 
a great deal of dry wit. He had several very pretty daughters, 
the eldest one being considered the belle of Bonn at that 
time. I remember his remarking to me once that a poor 
man could never dress well, as he always bought cheap 
clothes, and they never lasted any time. " Depend upon it, 
whatever is cheap is bad," he always used to say. 

The regiment stationed at Bonn was the King's Hussars. 
It was commanded by Prince Reuss, and there were seven 
princes amongst its officers. I knew the two Princes Ben- 
theim, and Counts von der Goltz, Metternich, Moltke and 
Bernstorff. The last-named was a gay young officer, who 
spoke English like an Englishman. I saw a good deal of 
him. His father had been Prussian Ambassador in England, 
and he had a brother serving in the Garde Kiirassier Regi- 
ment in Berlin. Prince Reuss was very severe with his officers, 
and insisted that, when they attended a ball, they should 
wear their swords the whole time, except v/hen actually 
dancing. On one occasion, an officer, who had omitted to 
replace his sword after a dance, was put under arrest for a 
week and confined to his quarters. Bernstorff, so he told 
me, once entered a tavern of bad reputation in Cologne in 
plain clothes, as he did not like to go to such a place in 
uniform, and on his return to Bonn was placed under arrest 

126 



The King's Hussars 

for a week. Notwithstanding the severity of the punish- 
ment meted out for minor offences against discipline, very 
little, if any, notice was taken when officers in uniform 
became intoxicated at balls. I can remember attending a 
ball at the Royal Hotel at Bonn, at which several officers 
of the King's Hussars were present wearing their dark blue 
uniform with gold lace, as they were never allowed to attend 
dances in plain clothes. One of them insisted on dancing, 
though he was so intoxicated that he could scarcely stand, 
and the others were highly amused at his efforts to dance 
with a lady, who must have been in entire ignorance of the 
state her partner was in. 

When the King's Hussars gave a ball at Bonn, which they 
did once every winter, they only invited the officers of the 
7th Kiirassiers from Cologne, and not a single infantry officer 
from the Line regiments at either place. Some of the English 
at Bonn were invited to this ball, but I cannot say that it 
came up to one's expectations. In the first place, it was a 
terribly stiff affair. The officers stood in one part of the ball- 
room ; the ladies, mostly seated, occupied the other part, 
and at the end of a dance, an officer generally conducted his 
partner back to her seat and left her with her lady friends. 
The supper was not at all a bad one, and there was plenty 
of champagne, but the guests had to pay for what they 
ate and drank. However, it was considered .so great an 
honour to be invited to this ball that no one grumbled ; in 
fact, they appeared to think it quite natural that they should 
have to pay for their refreshments. 

The King's Hussars was regarded as one of the crack 
Prussian regiments, and undoubtedly some of its officers 
were of very high social standing. But by no means all 
of these officers were wealthy, and I was told that the Princes 
Bentheim had only £150 a year each, besides their pay. 
The officers generally rode in the Poppelsdorfer Alice of a 
morning, making their horses perform la haute Scole, as 
though they were at a circus. Only one corps of students 
mixed at all with the officers. This was the well-known 
Borussia Corps, the members of which — ^the Borussen — 

127 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

wore a white cap somewhat similar in shape to that worn 
by French officers. This corps was composed entirely of 
members of the Prussian nobility, most of them being counts 
and barons, and they did not associate at all with any of the 
other student corps. They fought duels with the Schldger, 
and got cut about the face, but the more they were disfigured, 
the more pleased they appeared to be. Some of the Borussen 
joined the King's Hussars afterwards, but what became 
of their scars I do not know, for, strange to say, I have never 
seen any officers with these ugly marks on their faces. Per- 
haps, after a time, the scars disappear ; I can think of no 
other explanation, for all the corps students are forced to 
fight duels. 

I can remember Dr. Andra once showing me a tiny shop 
at Bonn, above which the royal arms of a certain country 
were displayed, and when I inquired the reason of this, he 
told me the following story, which I give in his own 
words : — 

" When the heir to a certain principality was a student 
at Bonn, he happened to enter this shop, in which there was 
a very pretty girl serving. The latter, who pretended 
ignorance of his identity, invited the Prince to come and see 
her one evening. The Prince went, and a violent flirtation 
was in progress, when the door opened, and the owner of 
the shop entered. This person affected the utmost astonish- 
ment and indignation, and, informing the Prince that the 
girl was his wife, threatened that, unless the would-be de- 
stroyer of his domestic happiness were prepared to write him 
out there and then a cheque for several thousand thalers, 
he would make the affair public. The Prince, anxious to 
avoid a scandal, complied with his demand, and, moreover, 
gave him permission to display the arms of his country over 
his shop-front as supplying His Highness with goods. After 
the Prince had left Bonn, the cunning rascal sent the girl, 
who was not his wdfe at all, back to Cologne, from which she 
had come, it was said, for the express purpose of assisting 
the shopkeeper to entrap the Prince." 

I used to go to the " Kneipe," where the corps students 

128 



The Howard Vyses 

assembled, with a young American named Howard Vyse and 
his younger brother.* We always went of an evening, 
when songs, principally " Studenten Lieder," were sung, 
and there was heavy drinking. On one occasion, the younger 
Vyse, on coming out into the night air, after attending one 
of these entertainments, told me that he felt so queer that 
he could not find his way home, and asked if I could put 
him up for the night. I took him to Dr. Andra's house, and 
he slept in my sitting-room. Next morning, the professor 
inquired why I had brought Vyse home with me, and I told 
him the reason, quoting, at the same time, the words of 
Nietzsche : — 

" Alles' ist erlaubt, nichts ist verhoten." 

To which he replied that such were not his views ; that he 
considered that everyone ought to lead a very moral life ; 
that it was wrong to get intoxicated, and that, although he 
never entered a church, he lived as moral a life as many 
religious people, who often professed to be better than they 
really were. 

Professor Andra was an intimate friend of the famous 
author, Berthold Auerbach, and once, when he was staying 
with Auerbach, the latter was engaged in writing his cele- 
brated novel. Das Landhaus am Rhein. One day, Andra 



* Mr. Howard Vyse, the father of these young men, came to see rae in 
Paris after I had left Bonn. He dined with us, I recollect, and we afterwards 
went to a theatre, and from there to various places of amusement, so that it 
was nearly daybreak before we reached the Hotel Bristol, in the Place Ven- 
dome, where he was staying, and where he insisted on my passing what 
remained of the night. As he offered me an exceedingly comfortable bed- 
room, I did not refuse. I dined a few days later with him and his wife at 
the " Bristol," where they had a suite of apartments usually reserved for 
royal personages, which the late King Edward VII. had occupied just pre- 
viously. While we were at dinner a courier came into the room to inquire 
if everything were satisfactory. This man's services, it appeared, had been 
exclusively engaged by Mr. Howard Vyse, and he was accustomed to order 
dinner and settle the accounts. Mr. Howard Vyse told me that he was obliged 
to remain three months at the Hdtel Bristol owing to his wife's state of 
health, as the doctor Avould not allow her to travel to Nice, where he in- 
tended spending the winter. He was a very wealthy banker from New 
York, and the two sons who were at Bonn with me were his only children. 

129 9 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

asked him to walk to Poppelsdorf, where the professor was 
going to lecture. But he declined, saying that to do so would 
put some of his ideas for his novel out of his head, as it was 
essential for him to keep constantly in mind what he in- 
tended to write about. Andra showed me the house on the 
Rhine which Auerbach had described in his novel, and one 
day took me there to visit a retired merchant, who, after mak- 
ing a fortune in America, had bought this beautiful villa in the 
Koblentzer Strasse, which had a very fine garden leading 
down to the Rhine. Andra told me that he detested novels ; 
nevertheless, one day, when I happened to be reading Auf 
der Hohe, by Auerbach, he asked me to lend it him, and, 
after reading it, said : — 

" After all, it is very well written, and I am pleased with 
it ; some of the ideas are uncommonly good, and the plot 
is ingenious." 

Excellenz von Dechen, Minister of the Rhine Provinces, 
told me that Andra might have occupied Bismarck's position,* 
but that he was too honest a man to change his opinions. 
Andra told me that Germany was far more fitted than France 
for a republican form of government, and that, if the War 
of 1870 had had a different issue, Germany would have been 
a republic, as France is now. He entertained a poor opinion 
of England and the English, whom he considered the most 
selfish and self-opinionated nation in Europe, and years 
behind Germany in intelligence. He held that Darwin, 
whose works he had read, had merely been the first to publish 
the ideas of a well-known German professor ; and he himself 

* The sister of Sir Howard Elphinstone, at one time Equerry to the late 
Duke of Edinburgh, related to me that, when she was in Germany with her 
brother, they went one day to secure places for some ceremony in which 
a good many royal persons were interested. When they entered the room, 
a man showed Sir Howard Elphinstone the places reserved for him and his 
family, and as this person wore a kind of dress coat with gold lace, Sir Howard 
took him for a manservant, and, on going away, slipped a thaler into his 
hand, which he accepted without making any remark. Later in the evening, 
Sir Howard and his sister discovered that the man whom they had tipped 
was Bismarck, v/ho at that time, of course, was not so celebrated as he subse- 
qi!er;tly became. 

130 



A German Professor on England 

had lectured upon Darwin's theory,* in which he was a firm 
believer, long before he had ever heard of him. 

Andra told me that at all the dinners which he attended, 
as a professor of the University, he took precedence of all 
the officers of the King's Hussars and of any titled person 
who had not some higher State appointment than he held. 
When I told him that this would not have been the case in 
England, he smiled and said : — 

" In' your country, with your antiquated laws, how can 
you expect so much civilization as in Germany ? The 
English have a great deal to learn, and it will be a very long- 
while before their barbarous customs are knocked on the head. 
So far as civilization is concerned, England is in a worse 
condition than France, and, Heaven knows, France has 
yet a good deal to learn." 

In his opinion, Bismarck was a man of great intellect, 
but without any conscience whatever. Moltke, he told 
me, was quite positive that Germany would defeat France 
before the war had begun, and he was a man " welcher 
schweigt in sieben Sprachen," as he rarely ever spoke. 
Moltke' s son, afterwards Field-Marshal Count von Moltke, 
was then in the King's Hussars at Bonn, and I knew him 
very well, but, save for indulging in some amorous 
escapades and getting very much into debt, he did not dis- 
tinguish himself, though I have no doubt he deserved the 
Iron Cross which he obtained in the War of 1870, with 

* Darwin's theory has of recent years been disproved by men of science, 
such as Professor Dr. von Wettstein, Warning, Henslow, and others. Only 
in certain instances can Darwin's theory be accepted ; but it has been dis- 
covered recently that the new formation of species among plants and animals 
is possible in different ways, and not only in the manner Darwin implies. 
His theory of descent, which was firmly believed in by men of science in the 
sixties and seventies of the last century, is now pronounced to be a theory 
altogether out of date, and has been superseded by those of Moriz Wagner, 
Karl von Nageli, Henslow, A. von Kerner and Professor A. Weissmann. 
" The Origin of Plant Structures by Self-Adaptation to the Environment," 
by Henslow, published in 1895, and Warning's " Geography of Plants," 
published in the following year, are well-known English books on this subject 
which may be recommended to those interested in it. 

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Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

most of the officers of the King's Hussars. Of Field -Marshal 
Freiherr von der Goltz it was said : — 

" Freiherr von der Goltz, 
Von iseiner Dunimheit ist er stoltz."* 

I often would ask Andra what books I ought to read, and 
one of the first he recommended was Hauff' s Lichtenstein, 
a charming romance in the style of Sir Walter Scott. Heine 
was a great favourite with Andra, and he could repeat his 
Lieder off by heart, f Goethe he ranked far above Schiller, 
and considered the first part of Faust vastly superior to the 
second. He had a very high opinion of Lessing's works in 
general. Of modern authors, he recommended Karl von 
Holtei's Die Vagabunden, which was, he told me, quite 
a classic, and I have read it again and again with pleasure. 
It is somewhat in the style of la Vie de Boheme, by Miirger, 
but I prefer it to the French work. In comparing Lesage 
with Scott, Victor Hugo seems to think more highly of 
the latter ; but Andra considered that Gil Bias would 
outlive all Scott's novels, which was also the opinion of 
Grillparzer. It was through Andra that I became a support- 
ing member of the " Verein zur Verbreitung naturwissen- 
schaftlicher Kenntnisse in Wien," which I have been for 
many years. The ill-fated Crown Prince Rudolf was for- 
merly the Protector of this society, a position which was held 
recently by the late Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir 
to the Austrian throne. 

Andra had held a post in Siebenbiirgen, in Hungary, under 
the Archduke Johann, for some years before his appointment 
to be a professor at Bonn. He was very fond of the Hun- 
garians and told me that he and some friends were one evening 
at a restaurant in a village in Hungary, where three or four 
musicians played so delightfully that his party kept giving 
them money to continue, and that he was sure that they 

* Baron von der Goltz is proud of his stupidity. 

I Grillparzer says of Heine that his first verses in the Reise Bilder and 
some of his last poems are of great merit, while those of the intermediate 
period must be considered decidedly bad. 

132 



Domesticated Habits of German Girls 

went on playing until about five o'clock the following morn- 
ing. He was passionately fond of music, and I would often 
ask him to play me some Austrian marches and waltzes on 
the piano, which he did with the true Austrian spirit. His 
daughter never played the piano, telling me that unless you 
can play exceptionally well, it is better to leave it alone. 
I wish all English girls were of her opinion. 

German girls are as a rule very clever, and have a good 
deal to say for themselves. They are highly sentimental, 
far more so than English girls, and can generally read French 
and English books easily enough, though I found that they 
could speak very little of these languages, as they had very 
little practice and few occasions to do so. Every girl in 
Germany can do the most difficult needlework, embroidery 
and knitting wonderfully well, in addition to which she 
thoroughly understands how to cook a good dinner. Fraulein 
Andra generally cooked the dinner herself, though she had 
servants, one of whom was a sort of cook. I remember that, 
in more recent years, at the Hotel Neckar at Heidelberg, 
I caught sight of a pretty, graceful young girl wearing an 
apron going into the hotel kitchen, and, on my asking who she 
was, I was told that she was the daughter of a count, and 
engaged to be married to a young count of high family, but 
before her marriage she was required to learn cooking for 
six months at this hotel. 

There were at this time several English families whom 
I knew residing at Bonn, among them being Captain and 
Mrs. Bean, who were living there to educate their children, 
and to whose house I was often invited to tea. I recollect 
once Mrs. Bean telling me and some other friends of hers 
that she intended going to a masked ball dressed as a gipsy 
fortune-teller, with packs of cards and bells sewn over her 
costume. On my arrival at the ball, I had no difficulty in 
recognizing this dress, but the voice of the wearer seemed 
very different from that of Mrs. Bean, and it transpired that 
the fortune-teller was Captain Bean, who, as his wife found 
herself unable to go to the ball, owing to a severe cold, had 
assumed her costume and come instead. He intrigued a 

133 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

great many people who were there, telHng them their for- 
tunes and more about themselves than they cared to know, 
and got a good deal of amusement out of his impersonation, 
no one but myself having the least idea who he was the 
whole time. 

There were also two sons of Peabody, the millionaire, at 
Bonn. The name they were known by was George, and one 
of them was married and had two very pretty daughters. 
The Georges were quite unaware who their father was until 
after Peabody' s death, when they were angry at only being 
left two thousand pounds a year each, the bulk of Peabody' s 
enormous fortune having been bequeathed to charities. 

The Carnival was very amusing for young people, as 
everyone had to be disguised and masked during the three 
days it lasted, and this custom afforded a good deal of fun. 
Besides, every house was thrown open, and we entered the 
houses of different people whom we knew with our masks on, 
and partook of tea and cakes without being recognized. The 
students, and, indeed, most young men, wore a blue blouse 
and white kid gloves, and a mask, over which a blue cap with 
a red tassel was worn. Some of the English girls at Bonn 
asked me to get up a ball, but only the bachelors would 
have anything to do with it. I arranged with the proprietor 
of the Rheineck Hotel that the ball should be given there, 
and he prepared his large dining-room for the dancing and 
a room adjoining it for the supper. The supper was to be 
provided at so much a head, wine being extra, as is the 
general custom in Germany. The members of the committee 
wore red, white and blue rosettes in their buttonholes. 
About sixty or seventy people came to this ball, including 
the officers of the King's Hussars, who, of course, were 
present in uniform, and it went off very well, as it was 
conducted on English lines, and was a much more free and 
easy affair than the average German ball. The supper 
was a very passable one, and a great deal of wine was con- 
sumed, particularly sparkling Moselle and champagne, so 
the company was pretty merry. Miss Edith Horrocks was 
the belle of the ball. She danced chiefly with a young Baron 

134 



Professor Delbriick 

von Plessen, an officer in the King's Hussars, whom she 
afterwards married, though, as there was not much money 
on either side, the young officer's father, who was a general 
of cavalry, at first made some difficulties. It was five 
o'clock in the morning before the last guests had taken their 
departure. 

During the winter several small dances were given by 
different English families, and these I generally attended. 
I also went to some German balls, but, as there were no 
English present except myself, and they were conducted 
in a very stiff and formal manner, I cannot say that I derived 
much pleasure from them, apart from the dancing itself, of 
which I was then very fond. 

At Von Sybel's lectures I made the acquaintance of a 
young man named Hans Delbriick, whom I liked very 
much indeed. He afterwards became a university professor, 
and was imprisoned some years ago for having expressed 
certain political views which were not in accordance with 
those of the " All Highest." He is now Professor of History 
at the University of Berlin. Some little time before the 
War he was interviewed by the correspondent of the Daily 
Mail> when he gave his opinion about the possibility of a 
war between Great Britain and Germany. 

During the spring and summer there was very little going 
on at Bonn, with the exception of steamboat excursions up 
and down the Rhine. For the residents, the winter is the 
season, but the climate at that time of year is no better 
than in England ; indeed, it is perhaps even worse than in 
some English towns, as in the morning there are often thick 
fogs rising from the river. Living at Bonn is cheap — 
cheaper than at Wiesbaden or Frankfurt, to say nothing 
of Homburg, which is far more expensive and much more 
pleasant in summer. But there are many worse places 
than Bonn in the winter, so far as amusements are concerned. 



135 



CHAPTER XIII 

The Countess Czerwinska — The Countess Broel Plater — Mile, de Laval — The 
Duchesse de Grammont — An Absent-Minded Gentleman — Dusauty, the 
Fencing Master — The Marquis of Anglesey — Charming Venezuelans — 
Miss Fanny Parnell 

AFTER finishing my studies at Bonn, I returned to 
Paris and rejoined my parents. I was very happy 
in Paris, of which I have always been very fond ; but what 
I missed there chiefly at that time was the companionship of 
young fellows of my own age. This reminds me of what 
Jim Doyne once said to me when he came to visit me 
there : — 

" I should like Paris better than London, if I could only 
fill the place with my English friends, and send some of these 
Frenchmen to London instead." 

I often experienced this very same feeling in Paris. It 
was very rarely that I met a Frenchman of my own age that 
I cared for, as I did for some English and Americans. Once 
at the Opera Comique I happened to sit in the stalls next 
a young Frenchman, who was very pleasant, and whom I 
got to know well afterwards. This was the Vicomte Frederic 
de Kilmaine, who, though of Irish extraction, could not 
speak a single word of English. A few days after I had 
made the Vicomte's acquaintance I went for a drive with 
him in his pretty victoria to the Bois de Boulogne, where 
we had some refreshments at one of the cafes there before 
returning to Paris. He often afterwards came to take me for 
a drive, and we became very good friends. The .Vicomte 
de Kilmaine, however, w^as an exception so far as young 
Frenchmen were concerned, for I never became very inti- 
mate with any of them. M. de Lesquier d'Attainville, 
grandson of the Prince de Rivoli, Due de Mass6na, was a 

136 



The Countess Czerwinska 

very nice fellow, and I liked him exceedingly ; but he was 
older than myself, and I did not see him very often except 
at the different houses which I visited of an afternoon or 
evening. I also liked Prince Jean Radziwill, who was a 
Pole, but I saw even less of him than I did of M. de Lesquier 
d'Attainville, and, besides, he was much older than I was, 
and a few years make a world of difference when one is very 
young. 

In after years, at Franzensbad, in Bohemia, I made 
the acquaintance of the Countess Broel Plater and her 
son and daughter-in-law. The Countess, by her first mar- 
riage, was the Princess Lubomirska, and Prince Jean Radzi- 
will was her son-in-law. The Countess was delighted to 
hear that I had known Prince Jean so well in former years, 
and told me many things about him. I often used to meet 
the Prince at Baroness Adelsdorfer's hotel in Paris, and 
also at the Countess Czerwinska's, vJe Countess Czajkowska, 
and I remember him telling me that he was best man at the 
last-named lady's marriage. It was a marriage of affection, 
and a son was born a year or so later ; but subsequently the 
pair had a quarrel and refused to live together any more. 
The husband was afterwards quite willing to make it up, 
but the Countess absolutely declined to do so, though 
Prince Radziwill said he did everything he could to persuade 
her to be reconciled. The Countess had the right to keep 
her little son Stanislaus, who was a boy seven years old. 
At the time I knew her in Paris, according to Russian law, 
in the event of a separation or a divorce, the mother has 
always the custody of the sons, and the father that of the 
daughters. This ought to be the rule in England, but, as 
we are an eqcentric nation, our laws quite naturally differ 
from those of all others. 

The Countess Czerwinska was a very good-looking, fair 
young woman, of about four-and-twenty. She was extremely 
well read and very intellectual, and appeared perfectly to 
idolize her son. She was very fond of the poet Mickiewicz, 
whose poems she often recited to me in Polish, afterwards 
giving me her own translation of them in French. It was 

137 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

said that she was employed by the Russian Government 
to find out political secrets, and the salon at her hotel in the 
Rue Chaillot was always filled with men from the Minist^re 
des Affaires Etrang^res, like M. de Lesquier d'Attainville, 
and also with representatives of the various embassies.* 
She asked me once to procure her an invitation to a private 
masked ball given by the millionaire Menier, who had made 
his fortune with the famous chocolate of that name, which 
I did, and escorted her also to the Concours Hippique at 
the Palais de 1' Industrie. 

The Countess Broel Plater was an old lady, who in her 
younger days had been, she told me, lady-in-waiting to the 
Empress of Russia, consort of Nicholas I. She also informed 
me that she had been brought up in the Palace at St. Peters- 
burg, and that she was really a daughter of the Tsar, as 
everyone at the Court knew. One day, when we were taking 
coffee and listening to the band in the Kur Park at Franzens- 
bad, she piqued my curiosity not a little by telling me that 
there were so many secrets at the Russian Court, that to 
reveal them would make one's blood run cold, and that, 
to her knowledge, three cold-blooded murders had been per- 
petrated at the Palace at Petersburg during the time she 

* Another lady employed by the Russian Government to worm out State 
secrets was the Countess Stadnicka, whose acquaintance I made in recent 
years in Vienna, and she would often ask me the most difficult questions, 
which I never attempted to answer. She told me that for information of 
a certain nature she was often paid very large sums. The Countess Stadnicka 
had very lovely blue eyes, which were imiversally admired, and a fine figure, 
but she was no longer in her first youth. She was the mother of Graf von 
Metternich, who was the owner of vast estates and a minor, and the Coimtess 
had a lawsuit in Vienna to obtain control over her son's property during his 
minority. She was a wonderful linguist, speaking English, French, German, 
Italian and Russian fluently, and could tell one more about the Austrian 
nobiUty than anyone else I ever met in Vienna, as she was a Viennese by 
birth, and her father, who was one of the old nobility himself, had occupied 
a high position. She seemed to know everyone, but though a woman of 
wonderful intelligence, she had a rather spiteful tongue, and was therefore 
feared by some people. She always spoke to me in French and often said : 
Vous etes drole, vous, car vous n'oimez que le fruit pas mur, ce qui est d'ahord 
tris fade et n' a point de goiity 

138 



The Countess Broel Plater 

was living there. She mentioned all the details of these 
crimes, which had been committed at the instigation of those 
in power at that time, and even the names of the victims, 
observing that at the time of their occurrence she was 
pledged to secrecy, failing which, she would have been 
poisoned herself. " No one," she concluded, " can possibly 
realize, unless they have lived, as I have, at the Russian 
Court, what fearful things have happened there, simply 
in order to satisfy the caprice of a sovereign. Whether it 
was the destruction of a girl, man or woman, it mattered 
not, so long as the removal of the person served to conceal 
something which the Tsar desired should not be made 
public." 

While relating these events, the Countess became quite 
excited, and her recital of them was so dramatic that one 
could almost imagine that she had actually taken part in them. 
She gave me, in fact, quite a creepy feeling, so that I was 
really relieved when she came to an end of her accounts of 
these tragic episodes. She afterwards told me that she was 
going to Nice with her son, whom I frequently met at Fran- 
zensbad with his lovely young wife, and I used to sit in the 
Kur and talk to them. The Countess Broel Plater had a 
charming villa, in which she had an aviary containing all 
kinds of rare birds, and it was her delight to sit near this 
aviary, admiring the gorgeous plumage of her beautiful 
birds and listening to them sing, while she thought how 
fortunate she was to have finished with the Russian Court 
and its dark tragedies. She told me that she knew the 
family of Count Branicki at Nice, and also the Countess 
Zamoyska, a very lovely woman, who had only very recently 
married, and was at that time the greatest heiress in Poland. 
Liszt says of Polish w-omen : " Ce qu'elles veulent, cest 
r attachement ; ce qu'elles esperent, c'est le devouement ; ce 
qu'elles exigent, c'est Vhonneur, le regret et V amour de la patrie, 
ce qui faisait dire d VEmpereur Nicholas I. : ' Je pourrais 
en finir des Polonais, si je venais a bout des Polonaises.''. " 

The Countess invited me to stay with her at Nice in the 
winter, if I were able to go there, but, for some reason, I was 

139 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

prevented from doing so. She took a great fancy to my little 
girl, Xenia, who was with me at the time and was then 
seven years old, saying that she reminded her of a near 
relative of her own, who also bore the Russian name of 
Xenia, which increased not a little the Countess's interest 
in my daughter. 

In Paris I always attended the ''jours " of the Countess 
Dzialyfiska, sister of Prince Czartoryski. Her daughter, 
Countess Helene Dzialynska, spoke English fluently, and 
told me she could learn any language in a fortnight. She 
wrote a book in French against capital punishment, called 
Sur la peine de mort, which had a large circulation. 
The Princess Czartoryska was a royal princess, a Bourbon, 
and lived at the Maison Lambert. Among their friends was 
a Swedish officer attached to the Embassy, who was a fre- 
quent guest at their soirees. He was no longer young, but 
always wore a corset and lavender kid gloves, and never 
took his gloves off even to eat his supper. In his younger 
days he had been dubbed, " la fille du regiment,'' and this 
nickname still clung to him. I met him there frequently, 
and he still considered himself quite irresistible aupres des 
dames. 

I used to go about a good deal in Paris at this time with 
Cecil Slade, a boy of fourteen, the son of a friend of my 
father, General Sir William Slade. He usually called for 
me of an afternoon, and we took long walks on the Boulevards. 
A girl friend whom I made was Mile. Julie Pietri, who was 
about fourteen. I often called at her father's house in the 
Champs-Elysees, and one day I said to Madame Pietri, 
before her daughter, that I wondered why French girls were 
not allowed the same liberty with boys which English girls 
enjoyed. Madame Pietri answered that it might be all right 
with English girls, but if French ones were allowed to be 
alone with gentlemen, the consequences might be disastrous, 
as French girls could not control their feelings. I thought 
this a strange thing to say before her daughter, and I 
observed that Mile. Julie looked rather confused at her 
mother's remark and blushed, but she did not say anything 

140 



Mile, de Laval 

in reply. About this time, I made the acquaintance of a 
young girl called Isabelle, about whom I have already 
written in " Society Recollections in Paris and Vienna." 
Isabelle was allowed more freedom than Mile. Pietri, and 
was not always with her mother, and I found out that 
Madame Pietri may have been right in her conjectures. 
Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking that French girls are 
treated rather too severely in this respect, and that if they 
were permitted a little more liberty, they would not suffer 
so much as their mothers suppose. 

In Paris, at this time, I had many friends among girls, 
but few among young fellows of my own age. I cannot say 
that I was in love with any of the former ; indeed, I felt 
quite indifferent towards them. I certainly admired Isabelle 
very much at first, but only for a time, and was almost glad 
when our flirtation came to an end. Such, however, is the 
perversity of human nature, that no sooner had I lost her 
than I began to regret her. After some weeks had passed 
I saw her again, when I believed that she had deceived me 
with an American, and was not worthy of my regret. She 
informed me that this American had made her certain 
proposals, which she had refused ; but I had a strong suspi- 
cion that this was not the case, and that her admirer had 
afterwards left Paris. I never met her again. She sud- 
denly disappeared, and, though I was very curious to learn 
what had become of her, I was never able to find out. She 
vanished like some fantastic apparition, leaving no trace 
whatever behind, or like a pebble cast into the water, which 
leaves only a momentary impression on the surface to indi- 
cate the spot where it has disappeared. 

Som.e time afterwards I made the acquaintance of a Mile, 
de Laval, who was poor, but of a very noble family. Her 
ancestors had been Dues de Laval, and she was related to 
some of the old noblesse of the time of Louis XVI. They 
had almost all been guillotined, and but few members of her 
family remained. She frequently told me stories about her 
ancestors, some of whom had been reduced to poverty. 
Mile, de Laval was an intimate friend of a Mile. Gabrielle 

141 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

de Tercin, a very pretty actress, who played at the Porte 
Saint-Martin Theatre. I was a good deal in the company 
of these girls, and used often to sup with them after the 
theatre. Mile, de Tercin had a friend who was very wealthy, 
and had furnished a fine appartement for her, to which I 
sometimes went with Mile, de Laval. 

Another acquaintance of mine was a certain baroness, 
the widow of an attache in Paris. She was at one time 
considered a very lovely woman, and certainly possessed 
very fine auburn hair and a very good complexion. She had 
a pretty hotel in the Rue Lord Byron, where she received a 
great many visitors in the evening, chiefly of the sterner sex. 
She told me once that the old Due de Persigny had called 
upon her whien she was alone and handed her an envelope. 

" Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela ? " she asked. 

To which he replied in trembling tones : — 

" Oh, Madame, ce n'est qu'une petite fleur, rien qu'une petite 
fleur . . . que je viens vous qffrir." 

She opened the envelope and found that it contained 
fourteen thousand francs in banknotes. She at once threw 
the notes in the ducal donor's face, saying : — 

" Sortez, Monsieur, a V instant de chez moi ; je ne veux 
ni de vous ni de votre petite fleur nonplus.'' 

The Duke entreated her to listen to him, but she only 
added : — 

" Entendez-vous, je veux que vous sortiez d'ici." 

Whereupon he withdrew, and she never set eyes on him 
again, so she told me. I met her years afterwards in Vienna, 
when she was not so rich, and, though nearly sixty, was 
dressed more like sixteen and painted up to her eyes. She 
told me that Austrians were not so generous as Frenchmen, 
but that she preferred Englishmen to all others. She was 
now inclined to regret her treatment of the Due de Persigny, 
though she laughed at the recollection of it still. Prince 
Rudolf von Liechtenstein called upon her in Vienna and 
sent her some beautiful flowers, when she remarked to me : — 

" To think that I have to content myself in Vienna with 
flowers ! But the Austrians are all so terribly mean." 

142 



The Duchesse de Grammont 

Amongst my mother's friends in Paris society at this time 
was Madame Leleu, whom she saw very frequently. Madame 
Leleu was a widow, and lived in a large appartement close 
to the Madeleine. When her husband was alive, she was 
very fond of dining with him at different restaurants, but 
since his death she had lived very quietly, and merely 
invited a few friends like ourselves to tea with her at five 
o'clock. Before her marriage she had been a Miss Beauclerk, 
and the Duke of St. Albans was her grandfather. She had 
at one time been engaged to Lord Cantelupe, but on her 
wedding day, while she was actually waiting in her bridal 
dress at the altar, she was informed that Lord Cantelupe had 
died quite suddenly. She told me about this sad event 
herself one day when she was visiting her aunt, Mrs. Healey, 
in the Rue d'Albe, but I don't remember what was the cause 
of Lord Cantelupe' s death. 

My mother also saw a good deal of the Duchesse de Gram- 
mont, who was a daughter of The MacKinnon of MacKinnon. 
She was very clever, though somewhat stiff in her manner, 
and while her husband was living gave some very smart 
dinner-parties. The Duchess had a fine house at Folkestone, 
a place of which she was very fond ; but after her husband's 
death she would sometimes let this house for the season 
at forty guineas a week. Her son, the present Due de 
Grammont, married a daughter of Baron James de Roth- 
schild, one of the Paris family of that name. The Hon. Mrs. 
Graves, a first cousin of the Duchess, who always stayed with 
her when in Paris, was a very great friend of my mother, 
and often dined with us in the Rue d'Albe. 

The Duchesse de Caracciolo, an American by birth, who 
was remarkably good-looking and very " spirituelle," was 
a great deal in Paris at this time, and frequently came to 
see my mother, who was very fond of her. My mother 
always told me that the Duchess was just the kind of lady 
I should have admired ; but, as Fate would have it, I was 
not fortunate enough to meet her in Paris. 

Mrs. Goldsmid, a Roman Catholic and the daughter of 
a baronet, who lived with her son in the Avenue des Champs- 

143 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Elys^es, was also a friend of my parents, and she was very 
intimate with the Duchesse de Grammont, whom, with 
her sons, the Due de Guiche and the Comte de Grammont, 
I met sometimes of an evening at her house. I met them 
more frequently after Mrs. Goldsmid's son married a very 
beautiful English girl, when the Duchess frequently dined 
there. After dinner we used to play cards, of which Goldsmid 
was very fond. He was at one time a great friend of my 
father, and they used to attend races together near Paris. 
He and his mother knew all the best people in the Faubourg 
Saint-Germain, as well as in the I merican colony. The son, 
before his marriage, which endeu most disastrously for the 
wife, chiefly frequented the society of Americans, while his 
mother, who was a most intelligent woman, was fonder of 
the French. The converp-ation at their house, when guests 
happened to be present, was always carried on in French, as 
both mother and son spoke the language perfectly. 

One day, when we were walking in the Champs-Elysees, 
my father pointed a man out to me whom, he said, he 
would not care to know at any price. He was a tall, well- 
built, fine-looking man, with a long fair beard. His name 
was Baron de Malortie, and he was a first cousin of Bismarck. 
I asked my father why he would not care to know him, 
to which he replied : — 

" Because he is always fighting duels ; he has fought about 
thirty in Paris, and has always killed or wounded his 
adversary." 

Some months later, I happened to be again in the Champs 
Elysees, when I saw my father in the distance, walking arm- 
in-arm with a man whom I thought resembled Malortie. 
In the evening I asked him with whom he was walking in so 
friendly a fashion in the Champs-Elysees that afternoon. 

" It was Malortie," he answered. " He is such a nice 
fellow ; I don't know anyone I like better ! " 

On one occasion my father was walking with two friends 
of his in Paris, when he turned to one of them, a Mr. Segrave, 
and said : — 

" I don't think you know my friend ..." 

144 




The Author's Father. 



An Absent -Minded Gentleman 

When the gentleman addressed promptly replied in a loud 
voice : — 

" No, and I have no wish to know him either." 

My father told me that ever since then he had avoided 
introducing men to each other, as one never knew whether 
they had not had some quarrel, as was the case in this 
instance. 

My father was subject to frequent fits of absent-minded- 
ness, and I recollect once in Paris telling him a long story, 
and asking his opinion from time to time. He answered 
merely in monosyllables, and when I came to the end, and 
inquired what conclusion he had arrived at about the whole 
affair, he observed : — 

" I was not listening to what you said, and have not the 
faintest idea what you were telling me about." 

Once, in Paris, he invited some people to dine at our 
house, but forgot to tell my mother about it, so that when the 
guests arrived, there was no dinner prepared for them, and 
everything had to be sent for from a restaurant, which, of 
course, entailed great delay. On another occasion, there were 
seven or eight people dining with us, amongst whom was 
General Sir John Douglas, Lady Elizabeth Douglas, Captain 
and Mrs. Berkeley, the Marquise Brian de Bois-Guilbert 
and Mrs. Joe Riggs. When the soup, which my father 
was supposed to serve, was put on the table, he was so 
engaged in conversation with Lady Elizabeth Douglas, 
that he unconsciously helped himself to it, and began calmly 
to eat, talking all the while. My mother, having drawn 
Captain Berkeley's attention to what the host was doing, 
the latter said, laughing : — 

" I say, old fellov/, I hope you are enjojdng the soup, but 
all this time you are keeping us waiting, and we should 
like to enjoy it as well." 

My father then realized what he had done, apologized and 
said : — 

" Upon my word, I am so absent-minded that I did not 
know what I was doing." 

In later years, while in India, I made the acquaintance 

145 10 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

of the Vicomte Arthur d'Assailly, and, meeting him after- 
wards in Paris, was invited to call upon him at his hotel in 
the Rue Las Cases. I happened to mention this to my 
father, when he told me that I should be careful about 
the people whom I called on, as there were so many adven- 
turers in Paris. Some months later, I went with my father 
to a club, where someone slapped him on the back, and, to 
my great surprise, it was none other than d'Assailly. My 
father then told me that he had known him for years, and 
that he was an excellent fellow, but that he must have been 
thinking of something else when I asked whether I should 
call on him, and so did not catch the name I had mentioned, 
and thought I had come across some adventurer or other. 

The Baroness Adelsdorfer gave my father one day, when 
he happened to call upon her, a very important letter to 
post, which he promised to put into the letter-box as he 
was going out. She told him that she wanted an immediate 
answer to this letter, so that he was to post it at once. He 
carried this letter about with him for a whole week, when, in 
my presence, he suddenly discovered it in his pocket. On 
his returning to the Baroness, she asked him about this letter, 
to which she was still awaiting a reply. 

" Oh ! I posted it all right, depend upon it," he replied, 
laughing. " There has been some delay somewhere." 

The Baroness, however, knew him of old, and exclaimed : — 

" I know you must have forgotten to post it ; I should 
not be surprised if you still have it in your pocket." 

I met the Baroness Adelsdorfer once at Longchamps, near 
the entrance to the Grand Stand, just before the races began, 
when, stepping out of her carriage — a very fine turn-out — 
she came up to me very excitedly, and exclaimed : — 

" It is really too bad of your father. I have been waiting 
here for him for half an hour, as he promised to get me a 
ticket for the Jockey Club Stand, and I don't see the least 
sign of him." 

My father, as a matter of fact, had forgotten all about the 
poor Baroness, and did not put in an appearance at Long- 
champs that day. However, the lady fortunately managed 

146 



Dusauty, the Fencing Master 

to get the ticket she wanted from some other member of the 
club. 

At this time, my father used to be always with Captain 
Lennox Berkeley (afterwards Earl of Berkeley), and I 
recollect his saying to me on several occasions : — 

" Whenever I have a difficult business letter to write, I 
always ask Berkeley's advice. I never met anyone who 
could write such a good business let*:er as he can." 

Once, when Berkeley was away from Paris, he said to me : 

" I wish Berkeley were here ; I have such a bothering 
letter to write and he could do it so well for me." 

I offered to try my hand at this letter, and composed one 
which he said would answer the purpose. But I discovered 
afterwards that he had torn it up, and, later, he admitted 
having done so, saying : — 

" You cannot write like Berkeley ; I don't know anybody 
else who can." 

While on the subject of letter- writing, I may mention that 
my mother frequently expressed regret that she had not 
kept the letters written to her by her aunt. Lady Caroline 
Murray, observing that they were so well written and so 
beautifully expressed that they were quite equal in every 
respect to those of Madame de Sevigne. 

I took lessons in fencing at this time from Dusauty, who 
had been in the " Cent Gardes " during the Empire, though 
Sir Edward Cunninghame, a well-known duellist in Paris, 
had advised my learning from Pons, who had been his 
instructor. I liked the way Dusauty taught me very much. 
He was one of the finest fencers whom I had ever seen, and 
taught some of the most redoubtable duellists, who often 
came to fence with him just before a duel. I fenced with 
some of them when "Dusauty happened to be engaged in 
giving another lesson, which was a great pleasure to me. 
Dusauty was quite young, only seven-and-twenty, a very 
fine-looking, dark man, six feet, two inches in height. Un- 
happily, he died not long afterwards. His death, it was 
said, was attributable to the constant shouting and the 
amount of dust which he was obliged to inhale while engaged 

147 10* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

in giving his fencing lessons, which caused him to contract 
the lung disease which proved fatal. I learned to fence with 
both hands, and preferred fencing with my left hand to my 
right. In after years, I lost the use of my right arm, and 
Colonel Crawley, an Old Etonian, who was then in my 
regiment, though he afterwards exchanged into the Cold- 
stream Guards, and with whom I often used to fence, re- 
marked that it seemed as though I had foreseen that I should 
one day lose the use of that arm. 

When Captain Berkeley went to live at Fontainebleau 
with his wife and family, my father was mostly with Lord 
Henry Paget, who afterwards became Marquis of Anglesey. 
Lord Hemy's only son, who, when his father succeeded to 
the marquisate, became Earl of Uxbridge, was a charming 
little boy, with very pleasing manners, who was generally 
dressed as a British sailor. He lived at this time almost 
entirely with the Boyds, and his aunt, Mrs. Yorke, had 
charge of him until he went to Eton. My father and I used 
frequently to meet him in the Champs-Elysees with his 
governess, when he would always run up to us to have a 
chat. His father, the Marquis of Anglesey, was very fond 
of horses, as was my father, and their tastes were pretty 
much'the same. They were both greatly attached to Paris, 
though neither of them could really speak French, their 
knowledge of which was confined to a few words. Lord 
Anglesey, indeed, never even tried to speak the language, 
and avoided French people who could not talk English. 
My father, on the other hand, rather liked to meet them, 
and contrived somehow to make himself understood. The 
racing in the neighbourhood of Paris was a great attraction 
to both Lord Anglesey and my father, but I do not think the 
former ever made a bet. I cannot say the same for the 
latter, who sometimes betted rather heavily. Lord Anglesey 
was particularly fond of dining at restaurants, where he and 
my father in later years often dined together, sometimes in- 
viting other friends. After dinner, as they both detested 
theatres, they played billiards, of which they were very fond, 
as they both played a very good game. Neither of them 

148 



The Marquis of Anglesey 

cared for balls and parties, and they both, as a rule, hated ail 
kmds of ceremony. After dinner they liked to smoke a pipe, 
though they were at times fond of a good Havana cigar. 
This was somewhat difficult to procure in Paris, but M. de 
Francisco-Martin, of the Guatemala Legation, would often 
make my father a present of a box of cigars, which he received 
direct from Havana free of any duty, as he belonged to the 
Corps Diplomatique. The society v/hich they preferred 
v/as that which attached little importance to matters of 
etiquette and ceremonial, except on certain occasions, as, 
for instance, when Lord Lyons, the British Ambassador, 
dined with Lord Anglesey. Then everything was carried 
to the other extreme, the Marquis priding himself on making 
a very great display in the way of silver plate and beautiful 
flowers, while the very best dinner which Madame Chevet, 
of the Palais-Royal, could supply, together with the choicest 
wines and liqueurs, was provided. An American lady, 
whom the Marquis admired very much, was usually invited 
to preside and entertain the Ambassador. 

There was an Englishman in Paris whose name was Field, 
and at one time Lord Anglesey was on rather friendly terms 
with him ; but one day the Marquis told my father that he 
gave himself airs, so that he intended to drop his acquaint- 
ance. Field was a very short, dark, clean-shaven man, more 
like an American than an Englishman. He used to receive 
every afternoon, when he was with the Marquis, my father 
and myself, various lavender-coloured notes, highly per- 
fumed, on receiving which he would exclaim : 

" Another letter from ! " mentioning the name 

of a celebrated actress. 

I asked him once, when he had given me the note to read, 
if she often wrote to him in that style, to which he replied 
that sometimes he received such notes from her every hour 
in the day. After Lord Anglesey had quarrelled with him 
I never met him again in Paris. I think he must have gone 
away, or perhaps he used to avoid the spot in the Champs 
Elysees where the Marquis and my father generally sat from 
five to six in the afternoon, to v/atch the carriages go b}''. 

149 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Lord Anglesey occupied a very fine appartement in the 
Avenue Kleber, which he rented when he was still Lord 
Henry Paget.. I recollect my father and I meeting him in 
the Champs-Elysees just after his half-brother's death, when 
the former congratulated him on having succeeded to the 
title, and the new Marquis said : — 

" I shall only have about £80,000 a year at present, I 
think, but perhaps more later, as my brother was heavily 
insured." 

Some days afterwards, my father asked him whether he 
intended to put his servants into powder, when he 
replied : — 

" I am afraid I can't afford that yet, as I should have to 
keep at least twelve footmen, six in powder, and the other 
six to relieve them ; but later on I may be able to manage it ; 
at least, I hope so." 

The windows of Lord Anglesey's appartement facing the 
street were furnished with very conspicuous pink-coloured 
blinds, adorned on the outside with very large coronets, 
which caused a good deal of comment. I remember asking 
Lord Conyers, who was a friend of the Marquis, why the 
latter was so fond of displaying these large coronets on almost 
everything he used, and that Lord Conyers answcced that 
Lord Anglesey had inherited this taste, which was a purely 
French one, from the French Kings, Louis XIV. and 
Louis XV., to whom his ancestors were related, but that in 
other respects his habits and ways were entirely English. 

FoUiot Duff and his wife and daughters were then living 
in Paris. He was a brother of Billy Duff, whose widow also 
resided there. Folliot Duff was a good boxer, and in Paris 
he conceived a great passion for fencing. I often called on 
the Duffs, when he invariably used to turn the conversation 
to his favourite hobby. He was a very agreeable man, but 
I never remember seeing him without his giving me a lecture 
on fencing, or occasionally, by way of a change, on boxing, 
Mrs. Folliot Duff was a very great friend of my mother, 
and, after her husband's death, she used often to come and 
dine with us. 

150 



Charming Venezuelans 

M. de Francisco-Martin, son of the Minister for Guatemala, 
and brother-in-law of the Marquis de San Carlos, formerly 
Spanish Ambassador in Paris, was also a great friend of the 
Duffs. He lived in a very fine hotel in the Rue Fortin, which 
he sold to the Marquis of Anglesey for £40,000. The latter, 
however, only lived there a month with his last wife. 
Francisco-Martin often used to pay us a visit of an evening, 
when his conversation ran mainly on horses and racing, for 
which he shared my father's partiality. 

I used occasionally to visit the daughters of the Minister 
for Venezuela, who lived in a very fine appartement on the 
Avenue d'lena. One of them, who was then about sixteen, 
was an exceedingly pretty girl, with blue eyes, jet black hair, 
small but beautiful features, and very white teeth, and the 
way in which she spoke Spanish was charming to listen to, 
so soft did it sound. I often went to her appartement, when 
she would invite me to take tea, and sometimes I found her 
alone, as her sister, who was engaged to be married, was 
generally with her fiance. The younger sister, whose name 
was Mercedes, made me speak Spanish to her at times ; 
at others we spoke French, and the time I spent with her 
seemed to pass very quickly — too quickly, indeed, to please 
me. 

I recollect calling one day on Madame de Passy and meeting 
there the Marchioness de Peiiafiel, whose husband afterwards 
succeeded the Count de San Miguel as Portuguese Minister 
in Paris. The Marchioness was wearing that day a very 
pretty hat covered with white flowers, for which, she told 
Madame de Passy, she had just given 300 francs. As she 
was on the point of leaving, it began to rain, and although 
the Marchioness's gorgeous equipage was waiting at the door 
for her, she was so fearful lest her -new hat should be spoiled, 
that, with Madame de Passy' s help, she covered it entirely 
over with a lace handkerchief, and then advanced bravely 
to her carriage, escorted by a footman, holding an umbrella 
over her head. The Marchioness de Pefiafiel was a gTeat 
friend of the Minister for Venezuela and his lovely daughters, 
of whom I have just spoken. 

151 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

6ne day, when I happened to be visiting the Shards, who 
lived in the same house as Madame de Passy, I was telHng 
the second daughter, Sophie Shard, a good-looking young 
girl, what trouble I had to get a good valet, when she said : — 

" Why don't you take a pretty girl and dress her in a page's 
costume ? I am sure she would suit you much better than a 
boy. I should do this if I were you, and I know you will 
be grateful to me for the advice I have given you, if you only 
follow it." 

I thought her idea, which reminded me of Goethe's 
Wilhelm Meister, excellent, but, as I was not my own 
master, I could not quite see my way to carry it out. 

About this time, I made the acquaintance of Madame 
Saba, v/ho lived in the same appartement as Mile. Daram, 
of the Grand Opera. The latter was a very pretty girl, 
with an exquisite figure, who possessed a fine contralto voice. 
She made it a rule to get up at seven o'clock every morning 
to practice her singing, and never broke it. She always played 
page's parts, for which she was paid 18,000 francs a year, and, 
though she had a friend, a French marquis, who had about 
£16,000 a year, and wanted her to give up the stage, she 
refused to do so, saying that she wished to be quite in- 
dependent. The appartement in which these two ladies lived 
was furnished with every comfort and convenience one could 
possibly wish for, including a good library ; and one day 
when they happened to be out when I called, I was given 
Labiche's plays to read to amuse me until their return. 

There was an Irish lady residing in Paris, who used to give 
a dance once a fortnight during the winter. - I recollect 
that amongst her guests on one occasion was a French 
countess, who wore a gown which was very d^colleUe 
indeed, so much so that several English ladies commented 
upon it. The lady of the house mentioned this to a young 
French count, who observed : — 

" On aime a voir ces choses, mais on n'aime pas qu'on 
vous les fasse voir.^^ Saying which, he borrowed a shawl 
from his hostess, and, stepping up to the countess, put 
it over her shoulders, telling her that all the ladies were 

152 



Miss Fanny Parnell 

so much afraid lest she should take cold. The countess, 
who was watching a game of whist at the time, thanked him 
for the attention without taking her eyes off the cards, 
and then pulled the shawl tighter round her shoulders. 

Miss Fanny Parnell, who was half Irish and half American, 
was then one of the loveliest girls in Paris. She was also 
one of the best dressed and most attractive in every way. 
She was a severe critic of her own sex, and her opinion of 
English girls was not a high one. On one occasion she wrote 
to me : — 

" / think, as you do, that English girls are, many oj them, 
very jast. They seem to he so anxious to get rid oj their 
reputation jor being dull and stijjf that they set no bounds to 
their liveliness. ^^ 

On another occasion, when I told her that I was going to 
Folkestone, she observed : 

" The girls in Kent, what I saw of them, were each one 
uglier than the other. So your fate is, I fear, not to be 
envied, knov/ing as I do your strong penchant for pretty 
faces." 

Miss Fanny Parnell died very young, quite in the flower 
of her youth, in the United States ; but the report I read in 
a nevN^spaper to the effect that Mrs. Parnell died there after- 
wards in poverty was, I am pleased to say, incorrect, for her 
daughter, Mrs. Paget, informed me some years ago that 
when Mrs. Parnell died she was with her in Ireland, and 
that she w^as surrounded by every possible luxury. 

Miss Minnie Warren, an American from Boston, who 
afterwards married a Vanderbilt, was one of the loveliest 
young girls I ever met. She was then living with her parents 
in an hotel on the Boulevard Haussmann, and I used fre- 
quently to meet her at parties and balls given by wealthy 
Americans. One afternoon I went to tea at her house, as I 
always did by invitation two or three times a week, and found 
her father sitting down reading The Times. He never so 
much as looked at me, but went on reading, while I sat 
silent and feeling far from comfortable, until Mrs. Warren 
came in and said : — 

153 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" I suppose you have come to see my daughters ; they 
will be home soon." 

I felt very much relieved when, a few minutes after, I 
was shown into the charming daughters' salon, where I felt, 
as I always did, " au septieme cieV 

Another remtirkably pretty girl whom I knew was Mile. 
Waterlot, whose acquaintance I made through the Marquise 
Brian de Bois Guilbert. I introduced her to Miss Parnell, 
as she wanted to go to some American balls. She found, 
however, her inability to speak English a great drawback 
at these functions, as American young men did not care to 
talk French, which entailed too much mental exertion to please 
them. Mile. Waterlot married some time afterwards the 
Comte de Lesseps, a son of the famous engineer of the Suez 
Canal. 



154 



CHAPTER XIV 

Captain Howard Vyse — An Anecdote of Paganini — New Hats for Old Ones 
— Albert Bingham — Baron Alphonse de Rothschild — Madame Alice 
Kernave — Gambetta 

DURING the winter months, I was very fond of going 
on Sundays to Pasdeloup's concerts, which were 
held in the Cirque d'Hiver. One Sunday, I met the Vicomte 
d'Assailly there, who told me that he preferred these concerts 
to those at the Conservatoire, as at the latter people did not 
cease to talk the whole time, which was very trying for those 
who, like himself, really cared for music. He was passion- 
ately fond of it. On one occasion, I went to Pasdeloup's 
concert with Captain Howard Vyse, formerly of the "Blues," 
an Old Etonian, and a friend of my father, who was nicknamed 
" Punch." He was placed in a seat near the kettledrums, 
while I sat some little distance away, as there were very few 
vacant seats. After the concert I asked Vyse how he had 
enjoyed it, when he told me that he had never slept better 
in his life, and had not once heard the kettledrums. He 
could speak very little French, but he thoroughly enjoyed 
going to the Palais-Royal Theatre, and would often tell me 
of a play there which was worth seeing, such as le Reveillon, 
by Meilhac and Halevy, of which he related to me the plot. 
He was always very lively, and sometimes rather amusing, 
and at times he would invite himself to dine with us, where 
he was always very welcome. Once, for some reason or 
other, my mother did not want him to stay to dinner, and 
told him that she was afraid she had nothing to give him. 
However, he asked her what there was, and, on being told, 
said : — 

155 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" If I had ordered the dinner myself, I could not have 
anything I like better." 

So he remained and dined with us, notwithstanding the 
excuses my mother had made for the dinner. My father 
introduced him to the late Lady Louisa Meux, sister of the 
Marquis of Ailesbury, who lived in quite a palace in the Bois 
de Boulogne, and had very smart " turn-outs." She used 
to give very good dinners and once invited Howard Vyse 
to dine with her. Whenever afterwards my father wanted 
to annoy him, he would say that he was sure that Lady 
Louisa Meux would be pleased to see him at dinner. To 
which Vyse would answer angrily : — 

*' However badly I might want a dinner, I would not go 
there for anything." 

The explanation of this was a secret between my father and 
Howard Vyse, and evidently an amusing one, since they 
always laughed heartily over it. 

Lady Louisa Meux was very rich and highly eccentric. 
Her husband was in a lunatic asylum, and she herself was very 
queer at times. I never knew her myself, but my father 
said she occasionally reminded him of a sister of his, whom 
he also considered rather eccentric. 

Signor Campobello, whose real name was Campbell, used 
to sing at a house to which I was sometimes invited of an 
afternoon. One day, v/hen he had just sung a song, the lady 
of the house went up to him and asked him, in my hearing, 
to sing again. He replied : 

" You are aware of my charges — five hundred francs 
each song." To which she rejoined : — 

" I am perfectly well aware of it." 

Campobello's wife was Madame Sinico, who was also an 
operatic singer and often sang at Covent Garden. 

The Marquise Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a very pretty and 
distinguished-looking woman, when dining with us one 
evening, happened to remark how badly professional singers 
were treated by some people, and related a story of a man and 
his wife who were invited to dinner by some rich people in 
Paris on purpose to avoid paying them for singing after- 

156 



An Anecdote of Paganini 

wards. However, after these two singers had had their 
dinner, they put a louis each on their plates in payment for 
it, and immediately afterwards left the house, much to the 
disgust and disappointment of their host and hostess, who 
had invited them expressly to sing to the other guests. The 
Marquise herself sang most beautifully and quite like a pro- 
fessional, having learned of the celebrated Professor Duprez 
(formerly of the Grand Opera), one of whose very best pupils 
she was ; and when she did so, always insisted that there 
should be no talking in the room, otherwise she would leave 
off singing at once. This was no idle threat, as I once saw 
her carry it out myself. 

Captain Berkeley, who was very fond of hearing her sing, 
would often remark that English people, as a rule, always 
begin to talk when anyone sings or plays, and he once told a 
story, which, though I have no doubt it is a very old one, I 
may as well repeat, for the benefit of those unacquainted 
with it : 

On one occasion, when Paganini was playing a violin solo, 
and had reached the most pathetic part, he was suddenly 
interrupted by a certain English peer, who touched his arm 
and said : — 

" Pardon, Monsieur, mais fai hesoin de causer avec une 
dame.''' 

It appeared that, in order to reach the lady in question, 
the Englishman had to pass Paganini, and the bow of the 
violin happened to be in his v/ay. 

''Si ce n'est pas vrai, c'est tres bien trouve,'' as Captain 
Berkeley observed at the time he told me the story. Let 
us hope that the lady was worthy of the interruption. 
Possibly she was a Venus, in which case there may have been 
some excuse for this infatuated peer, whoever he may have 
been. 

The Marquise de Brian de Bois-Guilbert used to pay fre- 
quent visits to the Duchesse d'Abrantes at her fine Chateau 
de Bailleul, where the latter's sister-in-law, the Comtesse de 
Faverney, painted a portrait of the Marquise, which she 
showed me. It was a very fine one, and^ unlike most amateur 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

productions, really resembled the original. The Duchesse 
d'Abrantes was then a lovely young blonde, and one of the 
best portraits that I ever saw of her M'-as one which she gave 
to the Marquise. She was taken in her garden, standing 
by a favourite horse, with her arm round the animal's neck. 

In reference to the Duchesse d'Abrantes, the Marquise 
once observed, in the course of a letter to me : — 

" Her whole family is greatly respected at Versailles, 
not only because it is illustrious, hut because it is very pious 
and very charitable. What kindness of heart, perfect 
courtesy, and exquisite and truly Christian benevolence 
do we find in these illustrious families ! I repeat : nothing 
is comparable to the courtesy and perfect breeding of the 
French nobility, which is doubly kind when one happens 
to have fallen into misfortune. Its soul is as lofty as its 
rank is elevated ; its heart is excellent. The greatest 
nobility resides at Versailles, for it is in greater security 
there than anywhere else.''' 

And she added : 

" On m'a surnommee id la rOse blanche, puis la blanche 
apparition, et fai de grand succes de beaute, distinction, 
chose rare parmi les femmes ; pour mon talent, on est 
en extase.'^ 

I went, in later years, to a very smart ball given by the 
Marquise de Blocqueville, at which I met the Comtesse de la 
Taille des Essarts and her daughter Gabrielle. The latter, 
with whom I danced, was a fair girl, who afterwards married 
the Marquis de Gabriac. I took the Comtesse, who was an 
English lady and a friend of my mother's, in to supper. 
When I left the ball, I looked for my opera-hat, which was 
quite new, and found a very old one in its place. They told 
me at the vestiaire that they thought the Marquis de Rey 
had taken mine. I accordingly sent him the hat with a note, 
asking the return of mine, and received an answer, saying 

158 



New Hats for Old Ones 

that he was not the person who had left this old hat, as his 
was quite new, and he would have no particular desire to 
exchange it. 

" Je regrette," he wrote, " d' avoir d vous annoncer que le 
chapeau que vous m'avez fait remettre hier n'est pas a moi ; 
V echange que vous supposez nest pas de mon jait ; mon 
chapeau Jtant entre mes mains, . . . Ayez done la bonte de le 
Jaire reprendre chez mon concierge, numero 11, rue des Saints- 
Peres, etc., etc.'' 

At the same time, the Marquis expressed the hope that 
I should find my own hat, but this I never did. 

The above incident reminds me of a story I heard about 
General Ronald Lane, of the Rifle Brigade, who was at one 
time Equerry to the Duke of Connaught. The gallant 
officer in question went, many years ago, to a ball in London, 
wearing a perfectly new hat, and, on leaving, found, as I 
had done, an old one in its place. He must evidently have 
determined to pay someone out for the loss of his hat, for 
the next time he went to a ball, which he did soon after- 
wards, he took this old hat with him, and, leaving the 
house early, had time to select the newest of the hats in the 
cloak-room and one that fitted him perfectly. 

" You can see for yourself," said he to the attendant, 
" that this old hat can't possibly belong to me. I must 
look for it, and I shall soon find it." 

In this way, he secured an almost better hat than the one 
he had lost, and, of course, he left the old hat in its place. 

At a ball given by an American in Paris, the celebrated 
composer Waldteufel was conducting one of his own very 
delightful waltzes, which he used at times to play in rather 
slow time, putting always a great deal of expression into them, 
when the master of the house came up to him and asked if 
he would mind playing the waltz a trifle faster, since it would 
suit the dancers better. Waldteufel, whose amour-propre 
was wounded by this request, immediately afterwards 
struck up the " Dead March in Saul," and since then no 

^59 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

one dared to interfere with him when he was conduct- 
ing his orchestra, which he did at all the principal balls, 
though his fee was £150 for the night. It was very in- 
teresting to watch him conduct his orchestra, which v/as 
excellent, though by no means numerous. At times, he 
played the violin and led the orchestra somev/hat in the 
manner of Edward Strauss, though he went through more 
peculiar movements with his arms and legs than even the 
latter does. Edward Strauss always seems to dance himself 
when he conducts his orchestra and plays waltz :'S and polkas, 
and looks pleasant ; but Waldteufel always looked furious. 
I remember at balls, when I was dancing a cotillion or a 
waltz, I used to be rather afraid of him, as one never knew 
at any time what eccentricity he might not be prompted 
to indulge in. Sometimes, he would stop his orchestra in 
the middle of a dance ; at others, he would play an overture 
when you were expecting a waltz. In fact, with him one 
had to be prepared for anything. But the Americans in 
Paris were such beautiful dancers that these eccentricities 
rather pleased them, and, besides, they could dance to almost 
any tempo. 

The Marquis de Grandmaison used often to dine with us 
in the Ru^ d'Albe. He was a very strongly-built, clean- 
shaven man, and wore his hair very short ; so much so, 
indeed, that one day, when he had given a photograph of 
himself to my father, the latter said : — 

" You look, my dear fellow, as if you had undergone ten 
years' penal servitude ! " 

Grandmaison laughed, as he always enjoyed a joke, even 
when it was at his own expense. Generally, he would 
retaliate, and my father and he used to make fun of one 
another. The Marquis, who belonged to one of the noblest 
families in France, and was a very wealthy man, owned a 
beautiful hotel in Paris. He had lived in the United States 
and spoke English like an American. He was very fond of 
practical jokes, and would make us all laugh at the tricks 
he had played on various people. My mother rather liked 
him, but at times he was almost too noisy ; in fact, very like 

i6o 



Albert Bingham 

a schoolboy, as he was up to all kinds of fun. He be- 
longed to the Jockey Club, and generally drove a fine 
four-in-hand to the races at Longchamps, and he was very 
fond of racing. 

The Marquis de Bois-Hebert, the husband of the well- 
known author, used also to drive a very fine four-in-hand 
in Paris at this time. I knew him very well and have men- 
tioned him in my book, " Society Recollections in Paris 
and Vienna." 

The late Hon. Albert Bingham, brother of Lord Clan- 
morris, who drew the pictures in Lady Brassey's well-known 
book, used often to dine with us in the Rue d'Albe, and 
sometimes brought with him a little pug-dog called Felice, 
who was a great favourite, particularly with the ladies. 
Bingham was a very pleasant man, with plenty of conversa- 
tion, and was most popular in Paris. He was very nice- 
looking and a good draughtsman, besides being clever in 
other ways. I remember him getting me an invitation to 
dine with the Naylor-Leylands, who had a fine hotel in the 
Avenue d'Antin, in which the kitchen was at the top of the 
house. The Naylor-Leylands had as their secretary a man 
who had formerly been a captain in the Rifle Brigade. I 
was at Eton with Albert Bingham's nephew. Lord Clan- 
morris, who entered the Rifle Brigade. I met him after- 
wards in town and also in Paris. He married soon after the 
last time I saw him. He has recently died. 

The Pi^tris sometimes came to see us in the Rue d'Albe, 
and, on the marriage of the eldest daughter, Marie, I was 
invited to the wedding, at which the two younger sisters 
acted as bridesmaids, and also to the ball given just before 
the married couple started on their honeymoon. About 
two hundred people were present at this ball, and the supper 
was an excellent one, with champagne. I danced with 
Mile. Julie Pietri, who was a beautiful dancer, and looked 
very pretty that evening in a dress of pink tulle, with pearls 
as ornaments. 

When Captain Hubert de Burgh, formerly of the 11th 
Hussars, who was an Old Etonian and a nephew of the 

i6i II 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Earl of Cardigan, dined with us, as he often did, my mother 
always said that she felt sure that he would break a wine- 
glass ; and he invariably did so. This was previous to his 
being attacked by the sad spinal complaint from which he 
died. One day, in the Champs-Elys6es, he fell in love at 
sight with a German lady whom my father knew, and she 
told him that she had also fallen in love with de Burgh. 
My father introduced them to each other, and de Burgh 
afterv/ards left the lady his entire fortune. At one time 
my father always went with him to the different race- 
meetings round Paris. 

In later years, Mr. Tugwell, a banker from Bath, who 
was on a visit to Paris, was very anxious to see Ferrieres, 
the magnificent country-seat of the late Baron Alphonse de 
Rothschild. Accordingly, having obtained permission from 
the Baron himself, who happened to be in Paris at the time, 
we went there by train. 

Ferrieres is one of the most beautiful properties in the 
world, and enjoys quite a European reputation for its 
magnificence. We went all over the chateau itself, entering 
nearly every room. On our arrival at the top of the house, 
I recollect seeing some very elaborate coffins, covered with 
gold, standing up against the outside walls of certain rooms. 
The servant who showed us over the house explained to us 
about these coffins, and said whose they were ; but I was 
only too pleased to go down the staircase again and see 
them no more. The servant showed us some of the beautiful 
objets d'art and paintings which adorned the walls, and 
told us that the house contained objets d'art to the value of 
nearly one hundred million francs. Baron Alphonse was 
the wealthiest of all the Rothschilds, and all the most 
remarkable objets d'art which had been amassed by the 
family in years gone by had been collected and placed in the 
Chateau de Ferrieres. We were told that Rothschild rarely 
ever gave permission for visitors to see the inside of the 
chateau, as he did not wish journalists and others to describe 
the interior of this splendid house and the wealth it con- 
tained, which, we were assured, exceeded that of any other 

162 



Baron Alphonse de Rothschild 

in Europe. Tugwell, who could not speak French, was' 
delighted to find that one of the gardeners had lived as 
head gardener on his estate near Bath, and had also been 
a gardener in the service of the Prince of Wales, afterwards 
King Edward VII. This man showed us over the green- 
houses, and told us that he was one of twenty-seven gardeners 
employed at Ferri^res, and that the collection of orchids 
was the finest in Europe ; and Tugwell, who had a very fine 
collection himself, admitted, after seeing them, that such 
must be the case. 

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild was a fair man with a long 
beard. He used, at one time, to ride a very fine chestnut 
horse, and to go every morning, accompanied by his daughter, 
also on horseback, to the Bois de Boulogne, returning to his 
hotel in time for dejeuner at twelve o'clock. Mile, de Roth- 
schild died quite young, and the Baron, who never seemed to 
get over her death, died himself not long afterwards. 

On one occasion, I went to the Chantilly and to le V^sinet 
races, and was shown over the splendid estate of the Due 
d'Aumale. Colonel McCall, a friend of my father, was 
Equerry to the Duke, and his son, who was an Old Etonian, 
served in my regiment, which he commanded in later years. 
The Due d'Aumale bequeathed this splendid property to 
the French nation. Le Vesinet races were not of much 
account, and were only kept going by the support of the 
royal owner of Chantilly. 

I went, of course, to Versailles to see the magnificent 
chateau and the beautiful gardens, which are laid out in the 
most charming manner imaginable, and, though often 
imitated, have never been equalled. Le Petit Trianon, with 
its splendid collection of roses of every possible nuance — 
the " Souvenir a la Malmaison," " Prince Noir," " La 
France," " Niphetos," " Boule de Neige," and so forth — 
greatly enhance the charm of that part of the gardens ; 
and when the great fountains are playing, the view from the 
terrace is quite fairy -like in its wonderful beauty, and the 
chateau looks like one of those magic palaces described in 
the " Arabian Nights." When there is a display of fireworks 

163 11* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

and the fountains are lit up by various coloured lights, you 
may almost imagine yourself in fairyland or living in the 
days of the Caliph Haroun Alrashid, particularly if one 
happens to be in the company of a fair lady, as I was in that 
of Mile, Renee Leclerc, 

I went once to Enghien with my mother and the Marquise 
Brian de Bois-Guilbert, where we listened to a fine Prussian 
military band, which played, as the Marquise observed, 
better than most French military bands. It was, however, 
depressing to reflect that the Prussians were then in occupa- 
tion and so near Paris. Enghien is a nice little place, with 
an artificial lake and some fine houses, and the public garden, 
where the band plays of an afternoon, is a very pretty one. 
The Marquise de Bois-Guilbert stayed there during the War, 
and for some time afterwards, before returning to Paris, 
where she usually lived. 

I once visited the Fair of Saint-Germain with some 
friends. In one of the shows a woman conjuror singled me 
out, and asked me to hold a gold coin in my hand. Then, 
telling me to keep m)^ hand tightly closed, she went away 
to a considerable distance, counted up to three and fired off 
a pistol. Afterwards, she asked me to open my hand and 
to count aloud in French the pieces it contained, which I 
found numbered over thirty. How the trick was performed 
I have never had the slightest idea to this day. 

I was once at the Cirque d'Hiver, in Paris, when a woman 
was blindfolded on the stage ; after which her husband came 
up to me and asked if I had a foreign bank-note about me. 
I gave him an Austrian one, which he held in his hand, and 
the woman immediately cried out : 

" Austrian ten-florin note, Number 178150." 

I never was able to discover how this was done. 

I went once with Madame Saint -Hilaire, who wrote some 
interesting novels, published by Dentu, of the Palais Royal, 
and her pretty daughter, Madame Alice Kernave, who had 
been an actress in St. Petersburg, to a seance of spirit- 
rapping and table-turning, in which they both firmly believed. 
But, to tell the truth, I did not think much of it, though 

164 




Madame Alice Ke^na^e. 



[To/acep. 16i. 







The late Earl (if Berkeley 



ITofncep. ICun 



Madame Alice Kernave 

the siances were always very well attended. I did not mind 
being kept in the dark when I sat near Madame Alice Ker- 
nave, but when I went there alone with her mother on one 
occasion I felt rather nervous. I never went again, but 
frequently visited the daughter, whom I admired at that 
time. She had received, while in St. Petersburg, very hand- 
some presents from a Russian gentleman, who, she told me, 
had recently died. She was looking for a good engagement 
in la haute comHie, in which she was very clever. I met 
her some years afterwards at Nice, where she was acting at 
the theatre, when she told me that she had lived in great 
luxury while her Russian friend was alive, but since then 
had been obliged to live more economically in Paris. 

I remember that once the Baron de Vay, a Russian, who 
lived during the summer at a villa he owned at V6vey, in 
Switzerland, called on my mother, in the Rue d'Albe, with 
his daughter, a pretty littl^ girl of fourteen. In the course 
of conversation, the Baron mentioned that he made a rule of 
never knowing certain people for more than a fortnight, after 
which he always dropped their acquaintance, if he possibly 
could, for, aS(<he explained, in that space of time he learned 
all their good qualities and none of their faults. I could not 
help thinking at the time, and I am still of the same opinion, 
that he was a most fortunate man to be able to do so. The 
Baron only spoke French and Russian, and did not know a 
word of English. 

In later years, when the Earl of Berkeley was living with 
his wife and his sister-in-law, the Baronne van Havre, in 
the Rue de Saint -Petersbourg, he took a fancy to the streich 
melodion (or viola zither), which is somewhat like the 
streich zither, and Sighicelli, the famous violinist of the 
Grand Opera, came every evening to give us lessons, when 
we all three played together. The streich melodion is a 
favourite instrument in Vienna, where thirty or forty of them 
are at times played together by young girls in society at 
the Musik Vereins Saal, and the effect is quite charming. 
Some evenings, Taffanel, the flute-player of the Grand 
Opera, broiight his silver flute, and really enchanted all 

165 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

whom Berkeley invited to his house. I remember that, one 
evening, Captain Francis Lowther, the father of Miss 
Toupie Lowther, the well-known lawn-tennis player, came 
there. He was a son of the Earl of Lonsdale and a friend 
of my father. He told Berkeley how well he spoke foreign 
languages, particularly French, when the latter replied that 
there was very little merit in his being able to do so, as 
he had spoken them all his life. 

At the house of some American friends of ours I had the 
privilege of meeting the same evening two of the greatest 
men of their time : General Grant and Gambetta. General 
Grant appeared to me to be a short, stoutly-built and rather 
stern-looking man. On being presented to him, I happened 
to remark that the day had been a fine one, to which he 
replied : — 

" I beg to differ from you, sir ; the wind was a bitterly 
cold one from the North." 

I afterwards spoke in praise of Paris, and said how much 
I preferred it to London, so far as its theatres and other 
amusements were concerned. The General repjied that he 
was much pleased with what he had seen of Paris, but that 
London and the English interested him far more. He then 
asked me several questions about England and the British 
Army, which I answered to the best of my ability. My 
answers seemed to please him, since he asked me to give 
him my address, and called on me with his son the very next 
day ; but I happened most unfortunately to be out. My 
impression of Grant was that he was a very kind- 
hearted man, but that he did not carry his heart on his 
sleeve. 

Gambetta shook hands with me like the General, but, 
instead of letting go of my hand, kept it in his, the while 
he made a very long speech in French, which was so florid 
that I was quite carried away by his eloquence, and forgot 
almost where I was. He did not seem to expect a reply ; 
anyway, he contented himself with one or two monosyllables 
from me, and praised England, the English, and the English 
Army in the most high-flown language. My impression of 

i66 



Gambetta 

Gambetta was that he was a passionate, warm-hearted son 
of the Midi, who certainly wore his heart on his sleeve. His 
appearance was not in his favour, as he was excessively 
stout and had a bad figure, but his attractive, captivating 
manner more than atoned for his physical defects. 



167 



CHAPTER XV 

My First Night at Mess — Life at Shorncliffe — The Charltons 

IT was not until two years after I had passed my examina- 
tion for the Army, in 1872, that I obtained my com- 
mission, when I was gazetted as a sub-lieutenant to the 2nd 
Battalion of the 10th (Lincolnshire) Regiment. My regi- 
ment was at that time serving in India, but, since it was 
under orders to return home, I was posted to the regimental 
depot at Shorncliffe, which was attached temporarily to 
the 2nd Battalion of the 9th (Norfolk) Regiment. 

On my arrival at Shorncliffe, I reported to Lieutenant 
Richard Southey, the officer temporarily comm^anding the 
depot, the senior officer. Captain Byron, being then on 
leave. He was a tall, good-looking man, with very pleasant 
manners, and I felt at once at my ease with him. He showed 
me the hut which was to serve as my quarters, and offered 
to do anything for me that he could, even placing his soldier 
servant at my disposal, until I had time to choose one from 
the depot. My hut, which was similar to those occupied 
by other officers, contained two small rooms leading into 
one another ; while the furniture, which I had had sent 
down from London, was of the kind usually found in barracks, 
consisting of a bed which could be easily taken to pieces, 
a chest of drawers separated into two parts, but which could 
be put together for use, a green and black Brussels carpet, 
and curtains to match. I also had an oak bureau, forming 
a chest of drawers and writing-table, which I had had all 
the time I was at Eton. The furniture supplied to officers 
by the War OfRce consisted merely of a table and two or 

i68 



My First Night at Mess 

three ordinary chairs ; but, with my own arm-chair, table- 
cloth, various knick-knacks and a number of pictures which 
I had had at Eton, I managed to make the rooms look 
habitable, if nothing else. 

At half-past six a bugle sounded for the officers to dress 
for mess, which was at seven o'clock. I confess that I felt 
not a little nervous on entering the ante-room in my new 
uniform, which was scarlet with yellow facings ; but Southey 
was already there and introduced me to most of the officers, 
who greeted me very cordially. 

The president at dinner was a captain named Dunn, who 
sat at the head of the table ; the vice-president was a 
lieutenant. The president and vice-president hold office 
for a week, and are then replaced by other officers of the 
same rank. The conversation at table was very animated, 
mainly on general topics ; indeed, military matters seemed 
to be more or less tabooed. The string band of the regiment 
played during dinner, and, I thought, tolerably well, though, 
as I had just come from Paris, where I was accustomed to 
hear some of the best military bands, I was perhaps rather 
difficult to please. After the band had played '* God save 
the Queen," and Her Majesty's health had been proposed 
by the president, all the officers standing to drink it, we left 
the table, the president and the vice-president being the 
last to leave. Most of the officers then adjourned to the ante- 
room, where I got into conversation with a lieutenant named 
Bethell, who had just joined the 9th (Norfolk) Regiment, 
and whom I had known as a boy in Somersetshire. Bethell 
was a very clever fellow, and in his examination for the 
Army had passed first out of three hundred. He was an 
excellent rifle-shot and a good all-round sportsman. Some 
years later he succeeded to the title of Lord Westbury, when 
he was transferred to the Guards. 

In the course of the evening the adjutant. Lieutenant 
Maltby, came up to me and told me that I must put in an 
appearance next morning at early drill. Maltby was an 
exceedingly nice fellow, and a thorough soldier. He was 
very particular about his dress, and even in mufti was 

169 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

a'ways tirS d quatre epingles. The following morning I 
found him on the parade ground, when he handed me over 
to a corporal for instruction in the goose step. After I 
had been practising this engaging exercise for about an hour, 
the adjutant came up, watch in hand, and told the corporal 
that that would do for the day, and asked me to accompany 
him to the mess-room, where we ordered breakfast. With the 
exception of the orderly officer, who was obliged to attend 
early parade with the adjutant and who came in shortly 
afterwards, we had the room to ourselves, as the other 
officers did not as a rule breakfast until nine o'clock or later. 
After breakfast, Maltby took me to the orderly room, 
to introduce me to the colonel, telling me that I must always 
address him and the majors as " Sir," but that this was only 
customary with other superior officers when on parade. 
The colonel, Lieut. -Colonel Knox, who came in shortly 
afterwards, was a tall, well-built man of about sixty, with 
grey hair and moustache and whiskers almost white, which 
gave him the appearance of being older than he was. He 
was very pleasant to me, and said : — 

" I am very pleased to have you in my regiment, and am 
only sorry that you do not belong to it, as you are an 
Etonian, and I -am very fond of Eton boys." 

He then said I must come to his house, when he would 
present me to his wife and daughter. 

At lunch, which was at half-past one, I was introduced 
to a lieutenant named Lovell, a good-looking fellow about 
five-and-twenty, with fair hair and moustache, whom I 
had not seen the previous evening, and with whom I became 
very friendly. He asked me to come with him for a walk 
to Folkestone, which was quite near, to which I readily 
consented. We had a pleasant walk along the cliffs, and 
I was quite charmed with Folkestone, with its green lawns 
facing the sea and its fine houses, standing for the most part 
in the midst of trim, little gardens, gay with summer flowers. 
During our walk Lovell explained to me many things about 
the Service, and told me many curious incidents which had 
happened while the regiment was at Yokohama, where it 

170 



Life at Shorncliffe 

had been stationed for several years, before being sent to 
Shorncliffe. He said that the regiment was very sorry to 
leave Japan, and that it was never likely to have such a 
charming station again. After a short time in England, it 
would probably be ordered to India, and that, in that case, 
he should exchange into a cavalry regiment, which he sub- 
sequently did. He was, however, very devoted to his 
present regiment, and said that the chief was an excellent 
man, and everything that one could wish for in a colonel, 
and that it was a rare thing to find all the officers pull so 
well together as they did. Unfortunately, the colonel would 
have to retire soon, though Daunt, the senior major, who 
would probably succeed to the command, would not make 
a bad chief. 

A day or two later, I called at the colonel's house, where 
I was introduced to his wife and daughter. The latter 
was a tall, dark girl, in the early twenties, with very charming 
manners. The colonel asked me a number of questions 
about Eton and also about Paris, of which city he was very 
fond, though he had not been there for some years; and 
when I left, walked part of the way back to camp with me. 

I found my life very easy with the 9th Regiment. I had 
to attend parade from seven till eight, and again from 
eleven till half-past twelve ; but of an afternoon I was 
generally free to do as I pleased, as it was only occasionally 
that I had to attend afternoon parade, which, however, was 
over by four o'clock. After my duties for the day were over 
and I had changed my clothes, I usually went into Folkestone, 
returning in time for mess. At first the only people I knew 
in Folkestone were a retired colonel and his wife, who were 
friends of my parents ; but Lovell introduced me to several 
of his friends. Among them was a certain Miss Burnett, 
who was very much in love with a lieutenant of the 9th 
Regiment, named Seaton, and at no pains to conceal the 
fact, which occasioned me no little amusement. Unfortu- 
nately, Seaton did not reciprocate the attachment with 
which he had inspired her. More to my taste than this 
lovelorn damsel was a lively young lady of some fifteen 

171 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

summers, who was known to her intimates as " Vic." She 
was a general favourite with the subalterns of the regiment, 
as she was very fond of horses and dogs, and rather amusing 
in her conversation, in which she used slang expressions with 
considerable freedom. Miss " Vic " used to drive a very- 
smart turn-out about Folkestone, and was quite an accom- 
plished whip. 

The 9th Regiment used to give " Penny Readings " once 
a fortnight, at which a good many people from Folkestone 
and Sandgate were generally present. At the first of these 
entertainments which I attended Lovell read some of 
" Artemus Ward," and in such an amusing manner that 
everyone was delighted. As I had the reputation of being 
a good performer on the zither, I was asked to play some- 
thing on that instrument, which was quite a novelty. It 
was very well received, and next day I received a note from 
a lady unknown to me, who, I was told, was the mother of 
an officer in the " Blues," inviting me to dinner and asking 
me to bring my zither with me. I showed the letter to 
Maltby, who advised me not to accept it, as it would, in 
his opinion, be making myself too cheap. So I declined, 
with many thanks. 

A subaltern of the 10th Regiment, named Richard Southey, 
went on leave about this time and left me his black servant. 
I found the felloAV very attentive, but I soon began to miss 
things. Among them was a pearl stud, for finding which 
I promised him a shilling. As, however, it was not forth- 
coming, I offered him half- a- crown, and the next day he 
produced it, to my great satisfaction. But, as I soon found 
that this system of offering rewards for " lost " articles was 
a trifle too expensive, and I could not get rid of him till 
Southey returned, I was forced to protect myself by putting 
everything of value under lock and key. Nevertheless, he 
generally succeeded in discovering some means of relieving 
me of anything to which he happened to take a fancy. 

Captain John Byron, a grandson of Lord Byron, who 
commanded the dep6t of my regiment, returned about 
this time from leave. He. was a rather handsome and very 

172 





m^^^^^yfliU 










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Miss Augusta Charlton. 



ITo/acep. ]72. 




Miss Ida Charlton. 



I'fo face p. 17a. 



The Charltons 

distinguished-looking man of forty, but inclined to be very 
arrogant in his manner towards those whom he did not 
like. Fortunately, he condescended to take a great fancy 
to me from the first, and made quite a friend of me, notwith- 
standing that I was so much younger than he was. 

Soon after this, another sub-lieutenant, named Arthur 
Dillon, joined my regiment, so that I now had a companion 
at morning drill. Dillon was the son of an Irish baronet, 
who was also a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, though 
no one would have imagined that he hailed from the Emerald 
Isle, as he spoke without the faintest trace of an Irish accent, 
and was a very nice young fellow indeed. 

One day I took Dillon over to Dover to call upon some 
people named Charlton, whose acquaintance I had made 
when a boy at Ostend, and who were now living in Victoria 
Park. Mr. Charlton had formerly served in the Queen's 
Bays, though he had sold out of the Service while still a 
cornet ; his wife was a very handsome woman, and they had 
six children, five girls and a boy, the two elder girls, Augusta 
and Ida, being remarkably pretty. Mrs. Charlton invited 
us to stay to supper, an invitation which we readily accepted, 
the more so that we were both at a susceptible age and the 
charms of our hostess's daughters had not been without 
their effect upon us. During supper Mrs. Charlton told us 
that a very smart ball was to be given shortly at Dover, 
to which they were going, and suggested that we should join 
them and bring two or three other young officers, saying 
that she could manage to put us all up for the night. Needless 
to say, we gladly accepted her kind offer, and on the day of 
the ball went over to Dover, with Bethell and another subal- 
tern of the 9th" named Townsend. As the ball was a military 
one, we all had to appear in uniform, and at the entrance 
to the ball-room were asked our names and regiments. 
Townsend gave his own and my name, and when they asked 
my rank, coolly replied : " Colonel, 10th Regiment." Next 
day, in the local newspaper, in the list of those present at 
the ball, I duly appeared as such. 

After the ball, which was a great success, and at which 

^7Z 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

the Misses Charlton, who had recently returned from a visit 
to the Continent and wore dresses of the very latest Paris 
fashion, were immensely admired, we drove back to Victoria 
Park, where we spent what little remained of the night, and 
after an early breakfast returned to Shorncliffe. 

Dillon and I found our life at Shorncliffe very monotonous 
when winter came on, for Folkestone was almost empty, 
and had it not been for the kindness of our friends at Dover, 
at whose house we were always assured of a warm welcome, 
we should have had a precious dull time of it. The only 
event of interest was the arrival from India of the 3rd Bat- 
talion of the 60th Rifles, all the officers of which were made 
honorary members of the 9th Regiment's mess, until their 
own mess was in order. I made the acquaintance of several 
of the new-comers, who seemed very nice fellows indeed. 
One of them, Captain Bingham, told me, a propos of the ball 
to which I had been at Dover, that once the 1st Rifle Brigade, 
when stationed there, had been invited to a ball given by 
the Buffs, but that when the " Green Jackets," in their 
turn, gave a ball, they did not condescend to invite any of 
the officers of the Buffs, nor any of the Dover ladies, all the 
guests coming down from London, which greatly disgusted 
everybody at Dover, and created a very bad feeling between 
the two regiments. 

Not long after this, Captain Byron received news that our 
regiment was shortly expected from India, and would be 
stationed at Chatham. This, of course, necessitated the 
immediate removal of the depot to Chatham, to the great 
regret of both Dillon and myself, for, on the whole, we had 
been very happy at Shorncliffe, and feared that we might 
not enjoy nearly so much liberty as we had had with the 
9th Regiment. 



174 



CHAPTER XVI 

An N.CO. of the Old School — Major Blewett — Captain Byron — Sandhurst 

ON our arrival at Chatham Barracks, I was allotted a 
single room in the officers' quarters, which was 
much smaller and less comfortable than either of the two 
rooms which I had occupied at Shorncliffe. Dillon was 
given a similar one, but Byron, being a captain, had better 
accommodation. 

Dillon and I found our life at Chatham very different from 
that at Shorncliffe, and not nearly so pleasant. We had to 
attend early drill with the recruits under a sergeant, who 
was very severe, and made us drill exactly the same as the 
men. Some mornings it was so cold that our hands became 
quite numbed, and we could scarcely hold our rifles. But 
this martinet of a sergeant had no pity, and made us " carry 
on " until we were ready to drop with fatigue and cold. 
The recruits he bullied most unmercifully. One morning, a 
recruit arrived late for parade, whereupon the sergeant gave 
him several kicks on his shins, and pulled him by the ears, 
until the poor fellow almost yelled with the pain. His 
tormentor, however, soon silenced him. 

" I won't have any of your blubbering," cried he. " If 
you don't stop at once, I'll give you three days' extra drill." 

This sort of thing he could do with impunity, as the 
adjutant was rarely on the parade-ground during early morn- 
ing drill. He appeared at afternoon parade, but paid very 
little attention to the recruits, occupying himself mainly 
with company drill. So matters continued until our regiment 
arrived, and even then there was not much improvement, 
for, so long as we remained in Chatham Barracks, the luckless 

175 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

recruits were always drilled by the same sergeant, none of 
them daring to complain, from fear lest worse things should 
befall them. 

The 2nd Battalion of the 10th Regiment was at that time 
commanded by Lieut. -Colonel Annesley, an amiable old gentle- 
man, with a wife and family, who appeared to engross a good 
deal more of his attention than did his regiment. For of 
much that was going on he seemed quite ignorant, and it 
was purposely kept from him. In fact, the battalion was 
really commanded by the senior major. Major Blewitt, the 
colonel seldom putting in an appearance except on field 
days. Major Blewitt was a very smart officer, and though at 
times inclined to severity, exceedingly just. He was very 
particular about etiquette, and scarcely ever spoke to a 
subaltern, except to give him advice or to reprimand him, 
even in the ante-room. I recollect about the only occasion 
on which he condescended to address me. 

There was a sub-lieutenant of a West India Regiment, 

whom I will call H , attached at that time to the 10th. 

This young gentleman was very fond of ecarte, and often 
induced me to play with him after mess. We played for 
half-a-crown a game, and I found that I generally lost, as 

H had a perfectly wonderful way of turning up the 

king almost every time he dealt. One evening, we were 
playing in the ante-room, where Major Blewitt was sitting, 
reading a newspaper. Presently, the major looked over the 
top of his paper, and observed that it was a pity that we 
could not find some better way of passing the time than 
playing cards ; adding that, if he thought we were playing 
for money, he would stop us at once. Soon afterwards, we 

finished our rubber, and H left the room, upon which 

Major Blewitt called me to him and told me that he did not 
like to see me playing cards. On one occasion, he said, 
he was present when two young officers were playing ecarte. 
One of them lost persistently the whole evening, but since 
they both assured him that they were playing for love, he 
did not interfere, though the way the luck continued to run 
in one direction was extremely suspicious. Subsequently, he 

176 



Major Blewitt 

discovered that they had actually been playing for five 
hundred pounds a game, and that the loser had been com- 
pletely ruined. The major added that, from what he had 

seen of H 's play, he should be very sorry to sit down to 

cards with him, and to play with him for anything like high 
stakes would be simply madness. The warning he gave me 
on this occasion was certainly well justified, for a lieutenant 
of the Lincoln's, narned Glass, afterwards lost considerable 
sums to H at ecarte. 

The captains of the regiment did not like Major Blewitt, 
who treated them off parade with a certain haughtiness, 
as though he were showing them condescension in speaking 
to them at all ; while the N.C.O.'s, and particularly the 
sergeants, were all afraid of him, as he seemed to be aware of 
everything that was going on, and v>^as very severe upon 
them if they did not treat the men properly. 

One day on parade, when Major Blewitt was in command, 
he gave some extraordinary orders, which it was quite im- 
possible for the regiment to carry out, and later, in the 
ante-room, he behaved in a very strange manner. It was 
then ascertained that his mind was affected, the result of a 
sunstroke v/hich he had had in India. He went away on 
sick leave, but six months later had to retire from the Service, 
as it was found that he was never likely to recover. 

The next officer in seniority was Major Hudson, who told 
me that he had served under my uncle and godfather, 
General the Hon. Sir George Cathcart, when the latter was 
Governor of the Cape. The major was a very pleasant 
man, but he had certain eccentricities, one of which was a 
partiality for white kid gloves and patent-leather boots, 
which he wore on parade, even in winter. He had little 
control over the captains, who did very much as they liked. 
One of them was almost perpetually drunk, and led his wife, 
a rather pretty woman and very well off, a miserable life, 
even going so far as to beat her, it was said. Some of the 
subalterns also drank a great deal more than was good for 
them, and there was one who was drunk on parade on at 
least one occasion. 

177 12 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Little, the senior lieutenant and adjutant, was, however, 
a very nice fellow, as well as a good soldier, and the same 
could be said for two other subalterns, Archibald Glen' and 
De Houghton. The former was six feet seven in height, 
and reputed to be the tallest man in the Army. I liked him 
exceedingly, but, unfortunately, he soon left the regiment 
for the Staff College. De Houghton, who afterwards became 
a baronet, had received the Gold Medal of the Royal Humane 
Society for saving life at sea. 

There was a subaltern in the 10th who prided himself 
on his knowledge of French. Once, when the regiment was 
stationed at Malta, a French warship happened to call there, 
and the officers were invited by the 10th to dinner. This 
lieutenant, being the best French scholar, was placed between 
the captain of the warship and another French officer. Pre- 
sently, the captain asked him in French how long he had been 
at Malta, to which he replied, without hesitation, while 
everybody pricked up their ears to listen : — 
" Je suis un dne ici.'''' ("I am an ass here.") 
The French captain tried to look serious, but the other 
French officers burst into fits of laughter. One of them 
spoke a little English and explained to the company what 
the joke was, when they all joined in the merriment. 
Needless to say, this misadventure remained ever after- 
wards a standing joke against the unfortunate lieu- 
tenant. 

Life at Chatham was very monotonous. Of society there 
was practically none, and, as the married ladies of the regi- 
ment were not on good terms with one another, there was 
little or no entertaining among the 10th. There was no 
theatre and only a couple of low-class music-halls. I went 
once to one of them, where there was a box reserved for the 
officers of the garrison, but did not feel inclined to repeat 
the visit. 

While I was at Chatham, a big ball was given in the officers' 
mess-room at the barracks by the regiments forming the 
garrison. A good many people came down from London, 
and were conveyed back by a special train after the ball was 

178 



Captain Byron 

over. I invited my friends from Dover, and the two elder 
girls, Augusta and Ida, were, as usual, much admired. The 
affair was a great success, and the supper was on the most 
lavish scale, with plovers' eggs and every imaginable delicacy 
and champagne flowing like water. 

• In due course, Dillon and I were put to company drill. 
On one occasion I got my company into a hopeless position, 
up against a wall, and not knowing what to do, told them 
calmly " to stand at ease," to the great amusement of every- 
one, including the adjutant, who told the story against me 
at mess that night, observing that I must evidently be a 
person of resource, as anyone else would have been at a loss 
how to act. 

A good many field-days took place at Chatham, of which 
the escalading of some high walls was a feature. I had 
sometimes to carry the colours in escalading these walls, a 
task which I did not much relish, as it was by no means, an 
easy one. 

I was growing so tired of Chatham that I was quite glad 
when I was sent with the rest of my company to Gravesend, 
to go through a six weeks' musketry course. I was con- 
stantly with Captain Byron, whom I very much liked, 
indeed, I preferred him to anyone else in the regiment, even 
to Dillon. Byron used to tell me that I was very foolish to 
leave the regiment, for one day he would, he thought, be in 
command, and then I should have a very good time of it. 
But my relatives were anxious for me to serve in one of the 
regiments for which my name had been put down on the 
Prince of Wales's private list, so I thought I was bound to 
accept the transfer when the offer came, which I was sure 
would be very soon. 

While at Gravesend, I went up to town to see Aimee 
Desclee act in Diane de Lys, by Alexandre Dumas fils. I 
thought her the finest actress I had ever seen, with the excep- 
tion, perhaps, of Sarah Bernhardt. She played the part with 
so much delicacy and refinement, her voice was so pleasing 
and her attitudes so graceful, that I was altogether charntd 
with her. Poor woman ! She died very soon afterwards 

179 12* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

from a chest complaint, while quite young. I was much 
pleased with an American actor, J. K. Emmett, at the St. 
James's Theatre, who played with a little child, singing a 
song in which the refrain was : " Schneider, how you vas." 
I also paid more than one visit to the Opera at Covent Garden, 
where Adelina Patti and Scalchi and the tenor Gayarre were 
delighting the audience. 

On my return to Chatham I found the work very hard. 
The most trying part of it was being on guard at the barracks, 
where I was obliged to be on duty once a week for the whole 
twenty-four hours. The guard used to be turned out 
two or three times during the day, and also in the middle of 
the night, by the field-officer of the week, who sometimes 
made his round at one or two o'clock in the morning, v/hen 
the subaltern on duty had to turn out the guard, besides 
having to go his round of the sentries. The officer on guard 
was not allowed to go to bed or take his clothes off, even after 
the field-officer had made his round of inspection, or he might 
get into the most serious trouble. There were other guards 
at some distance from Chatham, to look after the convicts, 
but this was during the day, and not nearly so trying as to be 
on guard at the barracks. 

Not long after my return to Chatham, Dillon and I were 
sent to Sandhurst, for a six months' course of instruction. 
But before going, at my relatives' suggestion, I went up to 
town to see the Military Secretary of the War Office, who was 
then General Cartwright, to inquire what chance I had of 
being transferred to the Rifle Brigade. He asked me what 
influence I had, when I mentioned the Adjutant-General, 
Lord Airey, v/ho had already presented me at a levee to the 
Prince of Wales, while I was stationed at Shorncliffe. General 
Cartwright then inquired if I had not any other interest, 
remarking that the Scots Guards were more easy to enter 
than either the Rifle Brigade or the 60th Rifles, and that, 
unless I had someone else behind me, he feared my chance 
would be but a poor one. I then told him that my cousin, 
the Hon. Emily Calhcart, maid of honour to Queen Victoria, 
had had my name put down for both the Rifle regiments, 

i8o 



Sandhurst 

by General Ponsonby, on the Prince of Wales's private list, 
upon which he smiled and said : — 

" She could get you into either of these ; in fact, she 
could get you into anything she pleased. If you had 
mentioned her name before, I could have told you so 
at once." 

I found life at Sandhurst very much like being at school 
again, with more restrictions than there were at Eton. There 
was a great deal of " ragging " going on, and some fellows 
had their furniture and everything in their rooms broken. 
I was fortunate in being, for some unaccountable reason, 
rather popular with the ringleaders — not that I assisted them 
in any way, for this sort of horse-play did not appeal to me — • 
and so escaped being one of their victims. Dillon was not 
so lucky, as at first he showed fight, but he soon recognized 
that the wisest course was to assume indifference. There 
were several sub-lieutenants of the Guards and cavalry regi- 
ments at Sandhurst, one or two of whom had been at Eton 
with me, and I made many friendships, one with a young 
fellow in the 78th Highlanders, with whom I often took long 
walks into the pretty country around Sandhurst. Apart 
from the instruction, I rather enjoyed my time at the college, 
as I got on well with nearly everyone. I had to go through 
the riding-school and ride horses over jumps without 
stirrups, which rather amused me, although there were 
some officers who disliked this part of the curriculum 
very much. 

After I had been about a month at Sandhurst, the Military 
Governor of the College, General Sir A. Alison, sent for me 
and told me that I had been transferred to the 2nd Battalion 
of the 60fch Rifles, stationed in India. I must confess that 
I was at first rather disappointed, as it was not the regiment 
I had asked for, and I did not much like the idea of going to 
India. I asked General Alison what I had better do, when 
he said that he would telegraph to the War Office, and that 
I ought to finish my course of instruction at Sandhurst. 
I anxiously awaited the reply ; and the following day he sent 
for me again, and told me that I must leave at once and get 

i8i 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

ready to sail for India, but that he thought the War Office 
would allow me a month to procure my outfit. 

Next day I left Sandhurst for London, and, having ob- 
tained a month's leave, proceeded to Paris to visit my 
parents in the Rue d'Albe, Champs-Elysees. They, and my 
father in particular, told me that I had better accept the 
transfer, as I might have to wait a long time for the Rifle 
Brigade, and the Military Secretary had told me that I was 
appointed to the first vacancy that had occurred, as there 
was no vacancy in the Rifle Brigade then. 

During my stay in Paris, I often rode in the Bois with my 
father on a fiery thoroughbred chestnut, whom I found a very 
different kind of mount from the horses at Sandhurst, as he 
started at the least touch of my heel, whereas the others had 
required both whip and spur. I made the most of my time, 
going often to the Theatre-Fran9ais, where I saw Delaunay 
in plays by Alfred de Musset and Alexandre Dumas fils, 
and was delighted with his acting. He was the best jeune 
premier whom I ever saw, and always excellent in the art 
of stage love-making. I went to several balls and indulged 
in some flirtations with both French and American damsels, 
and was sorry when the day arrived that I had to take my 
departure for London to purchase my outfit for India. My 
mother was distressed at my having to go to India, particu- 
larly as the battalion had to stay out there for some years, 
and she was in very delicate health at that time. 



182 



CHAPTER XVII 

I sail for India — Kandy — Dangerous Plajmiates — I arrive at 
Murree 

MY father accompanied me to Portsmouth in the 
winter of 1873, where the troopship in which I 
was to sail for India was lying. We had first to touch at 
Queenstown, to embark a line regiment which had been 
ordered to Ceylon, and had a very unpleasant crossing, nearly 
everyone on board being ill. I had to share a cabin with two 
other sub-lieutenants, who joined the ship at Queenstown. 
One of them, named Basil Montgomery, was in my own 
regiment, having recently been transferred from the High- 
land Light Infantry. He was very tall, for which reason he 
was nicknamed " Longfellow " on board. The name of 
the other sub-lieutenant, who belonged to the 16th Lancers, 
was Babington, which, owing to his somewhat youthful 
appearance, was promptly abbreviated to " Baby." I 
myself duly received the sobriquet of " Julie," as Montgomery 
declared I was in the habit of murmuring this name in my 
dreams. It was that of a young lady whom I have mentioned 
in my book, " Society Recollections in Paris and Vienna," 
and whom I had lately met frequently in society in Paris. 

The cabin we occupied was very small, and contained only 
one wash-basin, so we had to dress and wash one at a time ; 
but we soon got used to this inconvenience. 

Montgomery and Babington were both excellent fellows, 
and I was soon on very friendly terms with them, as I was 
also with another sub-lieutenant of the 16th Lancers, named 
Taaffe. Taaffe was very musical, having a good voice and 
playing the concertina capitally. The daughter of the 

183 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

colonel of the line regiment we had on board, an extremely 
pretty and very impressionable damsel of seventeen, fell 
very much in love with him, and they used to sing duets 
together, to the accompaniment of Taaffe's concertina. 

We had fine weather in the Bay of Biscay, where it is usually 
so rough, for which we were thankful. At Gibraltar we 
merely stopped for an hour to coal, but at Malta we stayed 
long enough for everyone to go on shore. Many of us dined 
at the Club and went to the Opera afterwards, which I thought 
very fair. The climate of Malta seemed delightful, but the 
town did not strike me as pretty. 

Not long after leaving Malta, bad weather and a dense fog 
came on, and something went wrong with the machinery, 
so that the captain did not know where we were. He was 
so alarmed that he ordered the chaplain to read the prayers 
for those in peril at sea, as at any moment he thought the 
ship might run on a rock. Happily, the machinery was re- 
paired, and at the end of three days the weather improved, 
and the danger was over. 

At Port Said most of the officers went ashore, and some of 
them visited a gambling-house which bore a very evil repu- 
tation, an officer belonging to the 16th Lancers having been 
stabbed there the year before. Taaffe and I were among 
those who went, though Taaffe confessed to me that he felt 
rather nervous, fearing that some of the natives might recog- 
nize his uniform as that of the unfortunate officer's regiment. 

At Ismailia we caught sight of M. de Lesseps, who sent an 
invitation to the ship, inviting six of us to visit him. Many 
of the officers thought that I ought to go, as I was the only 
one who could speak French ; but this suggestion was over- 
ruled, and it was decided that the six must be chosen by 
seniority. As not one of them could speak French, and 
M. de Lesseps did not understand English, the interview must 
have proved a somev/hat comic affair ; at any rate, the six 
maintained a suspicious silence about it on their return. 

Soon after we had passed through the Red Sea, which did 
not prove nearly so hot as we had expected, I fell ill with 
scurvy, and the doctor who attended me advised me to sleep 

184 



Kandy 

in the passage near the ladies' saloon, as the air was purer. 
However, an old dame objected to my sleeping so near the 
ladies, so the doctor got me a cabin to myself. On our 
arrival at Colombo, where the line regiment v/as disembarked, 
he obtained leave for me to go to Kandy and remain there 
until the ship sailed for Bombay. 

While at Kandy, I went Vv^ith Taaffe, who had joined me 
there, and two ladies to see the beautiful garden of Paradhenia, 
which is said to be the original garden of Paradise. We 
were all amazed at its beauty ; the tropical plants and the 
vegetation being indescribably lovely. While walking in 
the high grass, one of the ladies was bitten by leeches, which 
crawled up her legs and frightened her terribly. She was 
fortunate, however, not to have been bitten by something 
much more objectionable, as we afterwards learned that it 
was very dangerous to walk in the high grass, as it was in- 
fested by snakes, some of which were most venomous. 

The grandeur of the scenery at Kandy and the wonderful 
vegetation enchanted us, as we had never seen anything to 
compare with it ; it was indeed quite a paradise upon earth. 
The climate was also delicious, and even in the middle of 
the day the heat could not be called oppressive, while the 
mornings and evenings were truly delightful. The residents, 
however, told us that it was very trying to the health, as it 
never varied in the least, summer or winter. The scenery 
between Colombo and Kandy was in parts most exquisite, 
and the brilliant colouring of the flowers, which were of every 
imaginable hue, made one almost believe oneself in fairy- 
land. 

Having embarked the infantry battalion which had been 
relieved by the one we had brought from England, we sailed 
from Colombo, but after proceeding some little way along 
the coast, the troopship stopped for half an hour, to enable 
an officer who had to join his regiment to embark in a launch 
which came out to fetch him. This officer took with him 
by mistake a lady's trunk containing her dresses and under- 
clothing, instead of his own, packed with his kit, which he 
left for the lady. The latter was in despair, particularly 

185 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

when informed that she was unlikely to receive any news 
of her property for six weeks at least. 

After a voyage of six weeks, we reached Bombay, and, 
after a little trouble at the Custom House over some Turkish 
cigarettes which I had brought with me, and upon which, to 
my surprise, I was obliged to pay duty, proceeded, with some 
other officers, to Watson's Hotel. At ''Watson's," which 
I found very expensive indeed, I met Viscount Baring, 
of the Rifle Brigade, who had been at Eton with me. He 
told me that he was now on the Viceroy's Staff, and had 
come to Bombay to purchase some Arab horses for Lord 
Northbrook. Although it was winter, the heat was very 
great in Bombay, which I found very uninteresting, and, 
after a stay of two or three days, I set out for Murree, in the 
hills in the North- West Provinces, where my regiment was 
stationed. 

I had as a travelling companion for the first part of the 
journey a Staff -officer named Parker, who, on our arrival 
at Mean Meel', invited me to accompany him to the house 
of his brother-in-law, a judge, where I was most hospitably 
entertained, and tasted for the first time a real Indian curry, 
which I thought delicious. From Mean Meer I took the 
train to Rawal Pindi, in the Punjab. On my arrival, I went 
to the dak bungalow, where soon afterwards I received 
a visit from a lieutenant in my regiment named Beauclerk, 
a son of Lord Amelius Beauclerk. He was an exceedingly 
good-looking young man, with fair hair and moustache and 
a very pleasant manner, and was most kind, offering me a 
room which he had at his disposal and inviting me to dine 
with him in the evening. After dinner I was rather astonished 
at seeing his syce walking in front of his master's pony with 
a long stick, having at the end of it several bells, which he 
moved about in the grass. I asked the reason of this, when 
, I was told that it was to frighten away the snakes, of which 
there were a great many poisonous ones hereabouts. Beau- 
clerk told me that, a few nights earlier, he was dining with a 
Mrs. Kinloch, the wife of a captain in our regiment, when 
he saw a cobra quite close to her. She was playing the 

i86 



Dangerous Playmates 

piano at the time, and the snake was evidently quite fas- 
cinated by the music. Fearing lest, if she moved, the snake 
might bite her, he told her to continue playing, and then, 
picking up a stick which happened to be near him, hit the 
cobra on the head and killed it. He said that there was 
another very dangerous snake called a kerite, which, though 
very small, was most venomous, and that Mrs. Kinloch 
had found one quite recently in her bed. Happily, she 
discovered it before it had a chance to bite her. 

Beauclerk told me that I ought to call upon Captain 
Kinloch, who, having passed through the Staff College, 
was at that time Acting Deputy Assistant Adjutant- 
General at Rawal Pindi. I did so, and was informed 
that Mrs. Kinloch only was at home. On being shown into 
the drawing-room, I was somewhat astonished to find a 
little girl there, playing with two panther-cubs, who snarled 
and showed their teeth at me. I asked the child whether 
she were not afraid of them, to which she answered : — 

" Oh, no, not at all ! " and, opening the mouth of one of 
the cubs, thrust her hand into it. 

I began to feel quite alarmed for her safety, and was not 
a little relieved when her mother made her appearance upon 
the scene. 

Mrs. Kinloch was a very pretty young woman, with auburn 
hair and eyes of a greyish-blue colour. She told me that the 
panther-cubs had been captured by her husband a few days 
before, after he had shot the mother. 

" Are they not lovely ? " she exclaimed enthusiastically. 
" So beautifully marked in reddish-yellow and black, with 
such fascinating yellow and brown eyes. It is delightful to 
watch them." 

I replied that they were certainly very handsome and 
graceful animals, but that, nevertheless, I could not under- 
stand her allowing her daughter to have such dangerous 
playmates. 

To this she rejoined that she did not consider there was 
the slightest danger, so long as you were not afraid of them, 
adding : — 

187 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

" My little girl is not the least afraid." 

The little girl was caressing the cubs at the time, while 
the animals were snarling and showing their long, pointed 
teeth, though whether in play or not I could not say, as I 
was not sufficiently acquainted with their ways. 

Captain Alexander Kinloch, who was a nephew of Sir 
Alexander Kinloch, was, I may here remark, the most famous 
sportsman in India at that time, and had written a celebrated 
book on big game shooting in India and Tibet, which was con- 
sidered to be the standard work on the subject. When I met 
him afterwards, he told me many interesting things about 
Tibet, from which he had brought a fine collection of sport- 
ing trophies. Amongst them were several specimens of the 
ibex, which is found on the summits of the highest mountains, 
and to " bag " one of which is considered the greatest feat 
a sportsman can accomplish in India, since to approach 
within rifle-shot of it often entails the greatest risk to life. 

During the few days I remained at Rawal Pindi, I made 
the acquaintance of Colonel Montgomery-Moore, then com- 
manding the 4th Hussars, and his wife, the Hon. Mrs. Mont- 
gomery-Moore, a daughter of Lord Seaton, to whom I had 
brought an introduction from my cousin, Emily Cathcart. 
They invited me to dinner, when they were most anxious to 
hear all the latest news from England, as they had been in 
India for some time. They were most kind and agreeable, 
and the colonel gave me some valuable information about 
Murree. 

There was no railway to Murree, and travellers generally 
made the first part of the journey from Rawal Pindi by 
carriage, and the rest in a jampan (a kind of sedan-chair) 
as the road through the mountains was far too narrow and 
precipitate to admit of wheel traffic. I accordingly hired a 
carriage, and set off, but at a dak bungalow, where I stopped 
to dine, I met a man, who, on hearing that I was on my way 
to Murree, offered to lend me a grey Arab which he was riding, 
observing that it would be a more pleasant way of making 
the journey than by jampan, and promising to send my 
luggage after me. I thanked him and accepted his offer, 

i88 



I arrive at Murree 

though, as he was a complete stranger to me, I could not 
help feeling some misgivings as to his intentions, for, if he 
had a mind to make off with my luggage, there was nothing 
to prevent him. 

The road which I had to traverse was very steep and 
in places almost impassable, but the Arab appeared Avell 
accustomed to the country and as sure-footed as a goat. 
I had, however, a few decidedly unpleasant moments, when, 
at a very narrow part of the road, where there was a precipice 
on one side, we met some buffaloes, as I thought they might 
take into their heads to charge us. But they happened to 
be quite peaceably disposed, and we got safely past them. 
It was late in the evening when I reached Murree, which I 
found covered with snow, as it stands 7,500 feet above sea 
level, and no greater contrast with the plains and Rawal 
Pindi, where the weather had been quite like summer, could 
be conceived. I made my way to the officers' quarters, 
where I was given a room, and my horse well looked after. I 
had received instructions from the Arab's owner to send him 
back to the dak bungalow. This I did the following day, 
in the course of which my kiggage arrived quite safely, not 
a little, I must frankly admit, to my relief. 



J89 



CHAPTER XVIII 

My Brother-Officers — " The Oyster " — In High Society — Our 
Menagerie 

MURREE is a very charming town. The houses, which 
bear some resemblance to those of Switzerland, 
but are mostly constructed of wood and have rarely more 
than two storeys, are built on the summit and sides of a ridge, 
and command magnificent views over forests, cultivated 
fields, hills and deep valleys, with the snow-capped peaks 
of the Himalayas in the distance. There was a fairly good 
club at Murree, containing a number of bedrooms for the 
convenience of the members when they happened to require 
them. 

In the summer months my battalion was not actually 
stationed at Murree, but two miles off in the country, at 
Kooldunah. The officers lived in houses and villas very 
like Swiss cottages, and the men's quarters were at the top 
of a very steep hill, about ten minutes' walk from the mess. 
The battalion was at this time commanded by Lieut. -Colonel 
H. P. Montgomery, who had a brother in the Rifle Brigade. 
Colonel Montgomery, who was a fine-looking man of about 
fifty-five and wore a pointed beard which was beginning 
to turn grey, was universally popular, as he was a thorough 
soldier and devoted to his profession. He did everything 
possible to make his battalion as efficient as any in the 
Service, and prided himself upon its smart appearance and 
perfect discipline. He had the eye of a hawk for mistakes 
on parade, but would correct those responsible for them 
in a good-humoured, kindly manner, very different from 
some less experienced C.O.'s, who would often lose their 
tempers and swear when anything happened to go wrong. 

190 



My Brother -Officers 

The senior major, Major Ashburnham, the son of a baronet, 
was of somewhat striking appearance, having red hair and a 
red beard. Like his chief, he was a first-rate soldier and a 
thorough gentleman both on and off parade, and held in 
high esteem by the officers and men under him. He was 
known to his intimates by the nickname of " Brittles," 
about which he used to relate an amusing story : — 

Once, when returning to India after being on leave in 
England, he happened to meet on board the P. and O., 
a man whose acquaintance he had made on the voyage 
home, when he had been accompanied by some brother- 
officers, who had, of course, always addressed him as 
" Brittles." This man, who was bringing his wife out with 
him, asked permission to present Ashburnham to the lady, 
and gravely introduced him as " Major Brittles," under 
the impression that such was really his name. 

The junior major, whose name was Algar, was a very 
plain man, rather badly marked with the small-pox, and was 
by no means so popular as Ashburnham. He was a very keen 
sportsman, and when off duty was seldom to be seen without 
a rifle in his hand. One day I met him near Murree, when 
he told me that he had just seen a tiger, but that it had 
made off, adding that a tiger would nearly always run away 
from a man, unless he first attacked it. 

The captains were nearly all very nice fellows. Captain 
Pauli, into whose company I was put, was a tall and very 
muscular man, with a pointed beard, which gave him a 
somewhat foreign appearance. He was a great sportsman, 
but kept very much to himself, and, except at mess, the other 
officers saw little of him. 

The adjutant, Sydenham-Clarke, was a very good-looking 
fellow and always so beautifully turned out, whether in uni- 
form or plain clothes, that he looked as if he had just come 
out of a band-box. He was very kind to the young officers 
at their drill and took the greatest pains with them. He 
was also much liked by the men, and did not bully them or 
allow the sergeants to do so, as was unfortunately the case 
in so many regiments at that time. In a word, he was the 

191 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

right man in the right place, and how rarely this happens 
in the Service few people would imagine. 

When I first came to Murree, I occupied a room in the 
officers' quarters. There was a large room on the ground 
floor which was unoccupied, and, as it was so intensely 
cold, the subalterns amused themselves by playing a game 
of battledore and shuttle-cock across a net. Hubert Lovett, 
a sub-lieutenant who joined the battalion a week after I 
did, and myself were the first to think of this game, which 
somewhat resembled lawn-tennis in the way we served. It 
was taken up afterwards by many officers who dined at our 
mess, and is said to have given the idea of lawn-tennis to 
the inventor. 

Soon after my arrival at Murree, I fell ill with dysentery, 
owing, the doctor v/ho attended me told me, to the sudden 
change of climate. I was laid up for some time, but when 
it began to grow warmer I gradually recovered. 

The winter was a very severe one at Murree, and those who 
were fond of skating had excellent opportunities for indulging 
in this pastime. Fiennes-Dickenson, a lieutenant who had 
been transferred from the first battalion of the regiment, 
which was then stationed in Canada, was a most accom- 
plished performer on the ice, cutting figures and the letters 
of the alphabet as well, and MacCall, a captain, who had also 
come from the first battalion, v/as but little inferior to him. 
Dickenson told me that life at Quebec and Montreal was un- 
commonly pleasant, and that they scarcely felt the intense 
cold there at all, as the climate was so dry, and there was 
so little wind. He said that it was the custom there for every 
officer to have a girl " chum," who went tobogganing and 
skating with him and shared all his amusements. But he 
never married this young lady, who always ended by marry- 
ing someone else. This " chum " was a girl usually belonging 
to society, and was invited to all the balls and parties given 
by the regiment and considered quite comme iljaut. Dicken- 
son added that he much preferred the life out in Canada 
to the life in India, though Murree was the very best station, 
which was generally only given to a crack regiment. Dicken- 

192 



" The Oyster '' 

son was a lieutenant of some years' standing and very well 
off, having succeeded to a fine property of his uncle, Lord 
Saye and Sele, called Syston Court, near Bristol, although 
his father, with whom he was not on the best of terms, had 
the right of residing there during his lifetime. He was a 
great talker and his conversation was often very amusing. 

When summer came, the battalion moved to Kooldunah, 
where I occupied rooms in a small villa with a garden attached, 
in which Lovett and another sub-lieutenant named Sanford 
also had their quarters. Later on, we were joined by a young 
officer named Wilson, who had been transferred from a line 
regiment. We got on pretty well together, particularly 
Lovett and myself, who soon became great friends, and were 
constantly together. Lovett was a strongly-built young 
fellow, with black, curly hair, very white teeth, and a good- 
humoured expression. He was clean-shaven, which was rare 
at that time for a soldier. He had a very loud voice, and when 
he laughed he did it so heartily that everyone in the room 
used to turn round. He was quite colour-blind and never 
could distinguish one colour from another. Once he had to 
paint a river for a plan which he was required to draw, and 
would have painted it red instead of blue, if I had not been 
helping him. 

Sanford was quite a boy, without any hair on his face, 
tall and fair, with rather a large mouth, for which reason 
he was called " The Oyster." One day, when he happened 
to be on duty, a rifleman was overheard by Lovett to say 
to another : 

" Who is on duty to-day : Lovett or Wilson ? '* 
" Neither," was the answer, "it's ' The Oyster.' " 
Much to Sanford' s annoyance, Lovett, roaring, as usual, 
with laughter, told the story at mess that night, and 
remarked : — 

" Why, even all the riflemen call him ' The Oyster ' now ! " 

Sanford did not like me at all, because he suspected that 

it was I who had been the first to bestow this nickname 

upon him, and it is quite possible that his suspicions may 

have been correct, though I cannot be certain. 

193 13 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Wilson, the remaining occupant of our villa, was a rather 
good-looking and very smart young fellow, who spoke 
Hindustani very fluently. But he was very conceited, and 
imagined himself a much greater sportsman than he was. 
Once, when he had been on leave to Kashmir, he returned 
with such a wonderful collection of big game trophies that 
none of us could bring himself to believe that they had all 
fallen to his own rifle, and MacCall said to him at mess : — 
" Wilson, I tell you what it is — you have bought all that 
big game from some shikarri in Kashmir ! " At this 
remark Wilson became furious, and next morning, in the 
orderly-room, reported the incident to the Colonel, when Mac- 
Call was put under arrest until he had apologized to his ag- 
grieved brother-oflicer. This, however, did not cause him 
to change his opinion on the subject. 

MacCall, whose father was Equerry to the Due d'Aumale, 
spoke French perfectly, wore an imperial with his moustache, 
and might easily have been mistaken for a Frenchman. He 
shared a villa with a sub -lieutenant named Arthur Powys 
Vaughan, an exceedingly nice fellow, who had been at Harrow 
and had taken his degree at Oxford before entering the 
Service. 

With the exception of our medico, Surgeon-Major Mac- 
namara, the quartermaster, Fitzherbert, and the junior 
major, whose wife was in England, all the officers were 
bachelors. Consequently, we were very badly off in the 
matter of ladies' society, so far as the battalion was con- 
cerned. Mrs. Macnamara, who was a sister of Sir Howard 
Elphinstone, Equerry to the Duke of Edinburgh, was a 
very charming elderly lady, and I often used to go and take 
tea with her and her husband. She was partly Russian 
by birth and extremely musical, and took a great interest in 
the regimental band, in regard to which she was frequently 
consulted. I was put on the band committee and often 
attended the rehearsals of a morning. 

Lovett and I used to pay visits to ladies whom we thought 
we would care to know, as is the custom in India. One 
day, we called on two ladies who had a charming villa, beau- 

194 



In High Society 

tifully furnished, and whom we rather admired, though 
we knew nothing whatever about them. They received us 
very coldly, at which we were surprised, until Mrs. Mac- 
namara told us that they were two very fast ladies, who 
were protected by some well-known officers in Murree, 
holding very high positions on the Staff. 

When I was alone one day, I noticed a very pretty woman, 
upon whom I left my card. A few days later, I received a 
very friendly note from her, asking me to dine with her on 
a certain evening. However, in the meantime, I sprained 
my ankle, and was put on the sick list, and therefore not 
allowed to go out. But, I thought that, as it would probably 
be a tete-d-tete dinner, which I should not like to miss, I 
would go in a jampan, carried by two men, and no one 
would be any the wiser. I hesitated whether to go in plain 
clothes or in mess uniform, but finally decided for the latter. 
I had not made any special effort to be punctual, and, in 
point of fact, arrived half an hour late. On entering the 
drawing-room, I found quite a number of people impatiently 
awaiting the advent of the belated guest, amongst whom 
I recognized, to my consternation, the General commanding 
the troops in the Punjab ; and I was still more taken aback 
when I learned that I was dining with the Secretary of 
State for India, and that my hostess was his wife ! However, 
these great people were very nice to me, and the General, 
who did not seem at all to resent my having kept him 
waiting for his dinner, asked me several questions about my 
colonel and regiment, as, though there were several other 
officers present, I was the only " Greenjacket." For this 
I was duly thankful, since if one of the senior officers of my 
battalion had happened to be there, I should have got into 
trouble for going out to dine when I was on the sick list. 

It was the custom to take your khitmagar with you when 
you dined out, and I did so on this occasion. The next 
evening at mess, I noticed my khitmagar opening a bottle of 
Chateau-Laffitte for me, and asked him where he got it 
from. 

" I saw last night that Sahib liked this wine the best," 

195 13* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

he replied, " so I brought half a dozen bottles of it away 
from the dinner-party for Sahib ! " 

I burst out laughing, thinking to myself that I could not 
well scold my servant for looking after me so attentively. 

Apropos of native servants, when I first joined the 
battalion, I had a Christian " bearer," whom I had brought 
from Bombay, and who spoke English. But at the end of 
my first month at Murree, when I saw my mess-bill, I dis- 
covered that a quantity of brandies and sodas were charged 
for which I had never had. When I called my " bearer's " 
attention to this, he incontinently bolted from Murree, 
taking some of my property with him. However, he was 
eventually laid by the heels, and I had to ask for leave 
off parade to go down to the Law Courts at Murree to prose- 
cute him. This taught me that it is better not to engage 
" bearers " who talk English and call themselves Christians. 

Among the senior lieutenants in the battalion was Albert 
Phipps, a brother of the Hon. Harriet Phipps, maid of 
honour to Queen Victoria, with whom, as I have mentioned 
elsewhere, I once took tea at Windsor Castle in my Eton 
days. Phipps, who was fair and rather stout and always 
wore an eyeglass, was a godson of the Prince Consort, the 
only one who was still alive. He once told me that Queen 
Victoria had written a letter in her own hand, recommending 
him for an appointment with the Viceroy, but that the 
officer who was specially charged with its delivery had the 
misfortune to lose it. Rather than permit this officer to be 
punished for his negligence, as he undoubtedly would have 
been, Phipps refused to allow his sister to mention the matter 
to Her Majesty, and suffered in silence the loss of an appoint- 
ment which was not only a very agreeable one, but would 
have meant a great increase of pay. How many men would 
have acted as nobly as he did ? Very few, I am afraid. 

One night, while riding home after mess, along a very 
dark road, Phipps's horse fell with him. He was not hurt, 
but his eyeglass was broken in two, and as he could not 
get another one in India, he wore half an eyeglass for about 
three months, until a fresh supply was sent from England. 

196 



Our Menagerie 

At the villa where I lived in the summer months we kept 
several animals, including a wild cat, which was very savage 
and nearly as big as a wolf, a bear, which we tried to tame, 
a hyena and a monkey. These animals belonged to Wilson, 
who one day let the bear loose, and we had considerable 
trouble in recapturing it. 



197 



CHAPTER XIX 

A Subalterns' Court-Martial — A Terrible Experience — High Mess-bills 

AMONGST our amusements at Murree were balls, 
which were given periodically at the Club by the 
officers of the battalion. Although the majority of the 
fair guests were married women, there was always a sprinkling 
of unmarried ones amongst them, most of whom had come 
out to India in the hope of finding husbands. The band 
of the regiment furnished the music, and there was always 
a very good supper, with an abundance of champagne and 
other wines, so that they were very enjoyable affairs indeed. 
After one of these balls a most unpleasant incident occurred. 

It happened that I had danced with a Miss W , a 

very pretty and attractive girl, whom, later in the evening, 
I saw dancing with a young officer whom I will call Eugene, 
and who, I noticed, appeared very much Spris with the damsel. 
Next day, to my profound astonishment, I was placed 
under arrest, and told that I must appear before the Colonel. 
When I did so, he informed me that Eugene had told him 

that this Miss W had complained to him that I had 

insulted her. I indignantly protested my innocence, but 
the Colonel told me that, though he did not doubt my word, 
I must, nevertheless, write a letter to the young lady, asking 
her pardon, if I had unintentionally given offence. I wrote 

the letter and sent it to Miss W , but received no 

reply. 

At a garden-party given by the battalion a few days later, 
I saw the lady whom I was supposed to have insulted. I 
hesitated whether to speak to her or not, but finally decided 

iq8 



A Subalterns' Court-Martial 

.that it was best to do so and inquire why she had not 
answered my letter. 

" I don't know why you wrote to me," said she, " and, 
to tell you the truth, I don't in the least understand what 
you meant in your letter." 

I then explained everything to her, when she exclaimed : — - 

" I am extremely angry with Eugene. He must have 
invented what he told your Colonel, and so soon as I go 
home, I shall write to Colonel Montgomery, and tell him that 
the whole matter is a mere fabrication of Eugene. I am 
sorry that you should have suffered through the abominable 
untruths of a silly boy." 

Miss W was as good as her word, and the Colonel 

read her letter to Eugene and myself, in the presence of all 
the other officers. He said that Eugene had acted in a 
most ungentlemanly manner, and deserved to be severely 
punished for spreading about false reports calculated to 
injure a brother-officer. He concluded by hinting that the 
subalterns would best know how to deal with him. 

The hint, needless to say, was not lost upon these young 
gentlemen, and after mess Eugene was informed that he 
must appear before a court-martial that evening, in the 
villa where I lived. The president of the court-martial was 
a sub-lieutenant named Basil Montgomery, who was no 
relation of the Colonel, but the son of a Scottish baronet. 
Wilson acted as prosecutor, while Lovett defended the 
prisoner. 

Eugene was brought in between two subalterns, and the 
charges against him were read to the Court. The principal 
charge was : " Conduct not befitting an officer and a gentle- 
man, in having accused a brother-officer wrongfully, thus 
subjecting him to arrest and further possible inconvenience " ; 
but there were several others. The Court found the prisoner 
" Guilty," with no extenuating circumstances, and sentenced 
him to receive ten strokes with a cane on his bare back 
from each sub-lieutenant, to be sent to Coventry for one 
month, and not to be allowed to attend any balls or garden-- 
parties during that, period. Eugene took his punishment 

199 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

very well. The corporal part of it was probably less hard 
to endure than the deprivation of all social amusements 
and the ostracism to which he was subjected. It had, 
however, a very beneficial effect upon him, and he showed 
afterwards a very noticeable improvement in every respect. 
Eugene, I may mention, was a very good horseman, and 
rode in steeplechases, both in England and in India. 

Montgomery, who was the president of the court-martial 
upon Eugene, had come out to India by the same troopship 
as myself, but he did not join the battalion until much 
later, as he was taken ill at Bombay, where he had to remain 
for some weeks. He suffered a good deal, as I had done, 
from the change of climate when he first came to Murree. 
He was a very fine young fellow, about 6 feet 2 inches in 
height, and a most perfect gentlem.an, though perhaps he 
put on a little too much " side " at times. A good many 
years later, he succeeded to the baronetcy, his brother, who 
was in the Guards, having met with an accident which 
proved fatal. 

After a ball at the Murree Club one night, just as I was 
preparing to ride back to my quarters, a tremendous thunder- 
storm cane on. I waited for some little time, but, as there 
seemed no immediate prospect of the storm abating, I 
decided to face it, but told my syce, who was waiting for 
me with my pony, that I would take a short cut home, 
instead of going by the usual road. The syce walked in 
front of me, carrying a lantern to light up the wa}^, as it 
was a very dangerous path, with a most fearsome abyss on 
one side, and in places so narrow that there was only just 
room for a pony to walk along it. Suddenly, the lantern 
which the syce carried went out, and, as neither of us had 
any matches with which to relight it, we were plunged into 
total darkness, only relieved from time to time by flashes 
of lightning. The pony all of a sudden stood stock still 
and refused to go on, and, on dismounting, I saw through 
a flash of lightning a tree lying right across the path. I 
therefore thought it safer to proceed on foot, leading the 
pony, while my syce went in front ; and we continued thus 

200 



A Terrible Experience 

for nearly a mile, not knowing whether the next step would 
not plunge us into Eternity. But providentially at intervals 
came flashes of lightning, which made it easier for us to 
advance. At last we reached the end of the path, and made 
our way to the villa, drenched to the skin, but heartily 
thankful to find ourselves in safety. We had, indeed, had 
a terrible experience, and when I told Lovett that I had 
come home by the short cut, he would hardly believe it 
possible, as the night was so dark and the path so narrow. 

During the rainy season Murree was anything but a pleasant 
spot, for it rained without intermission for days and nights 
together, until the place resembled a wide river. All parades 
were suspended during the rains, but the officers had to 
go out to perform their duties and to mess and back ; 
and, though we were protected by indiarubber coats and 
goloshes, it was very disagreeable. The men's quarters 
were, as I have mentioned, situated at the top of a very 
steep hill, and although, since Colonel H. P; Montgomery 
had been in command of our battalion, he had a zigzag 
road constructed, so that the ascent might be made gradually, 
it was always rather an undertaking for the orderly officer 
to ascend the hill after mess to turn out the guard, and in 
wet weather it was simply detestable. The descent, too, 
Vv^as very dangerous, as the road was terribly slippery, and 
several accidents happened to both men and officers. 

The officers' mess was at the foot of this hill, and on a 
clear day the view from it was one of the grandest one can 
possibly imagine, for the air is so rarefied that it enables 
one to see further than one could otherwise. The towering 
peaks of the Himalayas, plainly visible, despite the immense 
distance, the dazzling whiteness of the snow, and the deep 
blue of the heavens, made a wonderful picture. But grand 
as the view is, I almost prefer that from the Kurhaus, at 
Ischl, though it is on a much smaller scale. It is almost 
like comparing the beauty of an orchid to a rose, which, 
though less sublime in its appearance, captivates the senses 
far more. There is something foreign in this Oriental 
scenery, which appeals less to an Englishman than the 

201 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

exquisite beauty of Switzerland or the Salzkammergut, in 
Austria. 

The General at that time commanding the troops in the 
Punjab was an extremely popular general and a friend of 
Royalty, but he had made a mesalliance, having married the 
divorced wife of a doctor. It was for this reason that he had 
been given a command in India, instead of in England. Lieut. - 
Colonel Montgomery-Moore, who commanded the 4th Hussars 
at Rawal Pindi, and who spent the summer months with 
his wife at Murree, did not call on the General's wife, nor 
did most of the officers of that regiment, and, as I had been 
introduced by my cousin to the Montgomery-Moores, I felt 
that I could not well visit the General's wife. Several of 
the officers of my battalion also did not call, though others 
were frequent visitors at her house. 

When the General inspected us, our Colonel ordered the 
band to play Die Wacht am Rhein, which they played the 
whole time out of deference to the Colonel, who was a great 
admirer of all things German. Not that he cared for the 
air, for as he himself once said, he could only distinguish 
two tunes. One was " God save the Queen," and the other 
was any other air, as he had no ear for music at all. 

At this inspection all the officers were called upon singly 
to show their ability in taking command, some of the entire 
battalion, others of a company. They nearly all acquitted 
themselves well, and the General, who was himself an old 
Rifleman, complimented the Colonel on the efficiency and 
smartness of his battalion, and praised all the officers, N.C.O.'s 
and men. 

Our Colonel, as I have said, was a most excellent com- 
manding officer. At times he would take command of half 
of the battalion, while the senior major commanded the 
other, and imitate the tactics employed in war, in order to 
teach the officers and men how they should conduct them- 
selves in actual warfare. On several of these occasions, I 
acted as his A.D.C., and, mounted on my pony, carried 
his orders to the junior major and captains, which I much 
enjoyed. 

202 



High Mess-bills 

The mess-bills of the oflficers of the battalion were so high 
during the year that the War Office complained that they 
were higher than any cavalry regiment, averaging £20 to 
£30 a month. The Colonel therefore requested the officers 
to see that they were reduced in future, as it was not pleasant 
for him to be accused of encouraging extravagance. The 
officers afterwards paid for what they required, and asked 
that no champagne should be put down on their mess-bills. 
A great deal of champagne was usually drunk at dinner, 
particularly by the subalterns, and it cost from fifteen shillings 
to a sovereign a bottle. Spirits were very little drunk, and, 
taken on the whole, the officers were very temperate, rarely 
taking more than was good for them. Among the men there 
was very little drunkenness compared with other regiments, 
and not a single case of desertion ; in fact, there were scarcely 
any prisoners at all. 

Lovett and I, who were both anxious to see something 
of Kashmir, obtained three days' leave and set off on horse- 
back. The country through which we rode was very pretty, 
the fields being beautifully green and besprinkled with scarlet 
poppies, while the hedges were covered with white roses. 
We passed the first night at a dak bungalow, and starting 
at four o'clock the following morning, in order to avoid 
the "heat of the sun, rode until midday, and then rested at 
another dak bungalow until evening. Resuming our journey, 
we presently entered a lovely valley, with a river flowing 
through it. This river, the Jhelum, separated British India 
from Kashmir, and the view from the dak bungalow at 
Kohala, on the Indian side, to which we made our way, 
after refreshing ourselves by a swim in the cool water, was 
very beautiful. The heat in the bungalow was intense, 
though they employed punkahs to relieve the discomfort we 
suffered, and towards midnight a terrific storm burst, the 
crashes of thunder being the loudest I had ever heard, while 
the lightning was so vivid that it lit up the whole of the 
surrounding country. 

We spent the next day in bathing and fishing in 
the river Jhelum, and, after dining at the bungalow at 

203 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Kohala, walked across the bridge which spanned the river 
On the Kashmir side we found two sentries posted who 
had been placed there by the Maharajah of Kashmir to 
prevent anyone unprovided with a pass entering his do- 
mmions. These sentries raised all sorts of difficulties to 
our entering Kashmir, but we crossed over all the same 
and took a long walk in the country, which was very 
hilly and rugged, with very narrow paths. When night 
came on, we returned to the bungalow, but, having ob- 
served that the two sentries had their beds placed on 
the bridge, we determined to get even with them for the 
trouble they had given us. Accordingly, we returned to the 
bridge, carrying two big buckets full of water, and, finding 
both the sentries wrapped in peaceful slumber, dashed the 
water over them, and then, having thrown the buckets into 
the river, ran for our lives. The luckless sentries, startled 
out of their sleep, snatched up their rifles and pursued us 
But they failed to overtake us, and we reached the bungalow 
in safety. We were somewhat uneasy lest inquiries should 
be made about us at the bungalow, but nothing happened 
during the rest of the night, and in the early morning we 
set off on our journey back to Murree. 

On our return to Murree, we decided to say nothing of our 
escapade m Kashmir, as if the Colonel got to know of it he 
would have us placed under arrest. Phipps, whom I told 
about It sometime afterwards, remarked that it might possibly 
end m officers' leave to Kashmir being stopped, but, for- 
tunately, as no one knew who had played the trick upon the 
sentries, his fears were not realized. 



204 



CHAPTER XX 

Sialkote — Amateur Theatricals — An Ingenious Thief — Death 
of Albert Phipps — Agra — ^Voyage to England 

N the autumn of 1874 the other sub-lieutenants and 
myself had to go through a course of instruction at 
Sialkote, in order to qualify as lieutenants. At Rawal Pindi 
I called on Mrs. Kinloch, my acquaintance with whom 
had been renewed at Murree, where she had been staying. 
Not long afterwards, I was shocked to hear that she had 
gone out of her mind. She died without recovering her 
reason. 

Sialkote is by no means a pretty place, being very flat, 
with few trees to temper the rays of the sun. Its ugliness 
was, however, relieved to some extent by a view of the 
distant mountains. Although it was autumn, the heat was 
intense, and in the daytime almost intolerable. 

Lovett, Montgomery and myself occupied a house, which, 
though it had one storey, was very large. We were attached 
during our stay to the Royal Horse Artillery (" A " Battery, 
"A" Brigade) and messed with them. Our instruction 
took place in the mornings under Lieutenant Hart, of the 
R.E., who put us through a course of surveying, fortifica- 
tion and tactics. Most of the instruction took place out 
of doors. Of an afternoon we generally prepared our work 
for the following day, and in the evening we dined at the 
R.H.A. mess, which was about ten minutes' walk from, our 
house. The officers of " A " Battery were very nice fellows, 
particularly Captain Hobart, who commanded it, Lieutenant 
Armytage, and Veterinary- Surgeon Batchelor, an 1 did all 
they could to make things pleasant for us. The evenings 

205 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

at mess, however, were rather dull, as so few members dined 
there, though at times they were enlivened by the presence 
of guests, generally officers from the 5th Lancers, who, with 
two infantry battalions and a regiment of Bengal cavalry, 
were also stationed at Sialkote. 

The 5th Lancers were a very lively lot, and their mess 
was very amusing. On one occasion, after mess, they dragged 
a lieutenant over the billiard table, with the result that the 
cloth was cut all to pieces by his spurs, and, not content 
with this, smashed all the crockery and glass in the mess- 
room. One morning, on parade, another lieutenant, who 
rode very badly, fell off his horse, whereupon his brother 
subalterns " ragged " his room and broke everything they 
could lay their hands on. The unfortunate owner, who 
had not the sweetest of tempers, took their behaviour in 
very ill part, and shortly afterwards exchanged into a High- 
land regiment stationed at Gibraltar. 

Some of the 5th Lancers were, however, very nice fellows, 
particularly two sub-lieutenants named Russell and Beau- 
mont, who were very friendly with Montgomery and myself, 
and we often dined all together. 

One evening the sub-lieutenants of my battalion invited 
Beaumont and Russell to dine at the R.H.A. mess, and after- 
wards we all proceeded to our house, where we had prepared 
a nautch for them, having sent to the bazaar for a num- 
ber of dancing women. These women danced most fantastic 
dances, and wound up the entertainment by dancing with 
some of the subalterns, who were wearing their white Indian 
mess uniforms. The officers of my battalion, I may mention, 
had adopted a pink silk sash round the waist, which we wore 
instead of a waistcoat, owing to the intense heat. 

The colonel of the 5th Lancers, Lieut.-Colonel Massey, 
was popular with all ranks, and one of the captains, Benyon 

by name, was a most charming man. C , another captain, 

a very ugly, red-haired man, was most clever and amusing, 
but much disliked both by his brother- officers and the men of 
the regiment. He often dined at the R.H.A. mess, where 
he entertained everyone with his stories after dinner. One 

2o6 



Amateur Theatricals 

story which he told was of a young fellow who was staying 
at a nobleman's country house, where a lady, with whom 
he was in love, gave him an assignation, and agreed to put 
a flower in the keyhole of her door when she retired for the 
night. Someone, with a predilection for practical jokes, 
catching sight of the flower, removed it and placed it in the 
keyhole of another door, with the result that the luckless 
young fellow invaded the privacy of a judge and his wife. 
There was a terrible scandal the next day, and the victim 
of this misadventure had to leave the house at once. 

C was very fond of botany, and I remember that once, 

when I happened to meet him, he showed me a mimosa, which 
was so sensitive to the touch that the moment one handled 
it it drew in its leaves. He came to a tragic end in South 
Africa, where he was shot by one of the men of his troop, 
not, it was generally believed, accidentally. 

Armytage, the lieutenant in the R.H.A. whom I have 
already mentioned, was the son of a baronet and a very 
pleasant fellow. He had a pet dog which he used always 
to bring into the mess-room, and which would perform 
tricks. He related how once, when he had been ordered on 
foreign service, the captain of the troopship, hearing that he 
had a dog, objected to his bringing it on board, as he had 
made a rule against it. When, however, Armytage showed 
him the little dog and made it perform its tricks, the captain 
was so amused by them that he said he would make an 
exception in this case. Armytage was a good actor, and 
used to organize amateur theatricals. One evening, he got 
up a play, in which he took the leading part, and acted 
very well in the comic style. The other parts were taken by 
men of " A " Battery, and the performance, to which a 
good many people came, was a distinct success. Afterwards, 
a dance was given in the mess-room, but, as there were 
about twenty officers to each lady, it was more pleasant for 
the ladies than for us. The sub-lieutenants, indeed, went 
away as soon as they could, not being at all attracted by 
our fair guests, who were mostly past their first youth, 
whil6 the few girls present were very plain, 

207 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

There was an excellent polo-ground at Sialkote, and many 
of the officers played of an afternoon. There was also a 
croquet and lawn-tennis ground, and these games were 
played a good deal by ladies in very old-fashioned dresses, 
as ladies in India, as a rule, dress very badly and quite out 
of date. 

The officers rode home from mess of an evening-; and I 
used sometimes to make my pony " Chang " mount the steps 
of our house, and enter my room, after which he would 
go off alone to the stables. Once at Murree, for a bet, I rode 
" Chang " up a long flight of steps to a church and down again, 
and he never put a foot wrong. Batchelor, the " vet " of 
the R.H.A., had a horse which sometimes, on his reaching 
the mess-room, he would tell to go home, when the horse 
would find its way back to the stables, which were some 
distance away. 

Two new sub-lieutenants came to Sialkote to go through 
the course. One, named Marsham, an Old Etonian and a 
very nice fellow, was in my regiment ; the other, whose 
name was Wood, belonged to the 4th Hussars. He was 
nicknamed " Lakri " (" wood "), as he v/as of rather swarthy 
complexion. Wood had a very nice chestnut pony, which 
he often lent me, and one day Lovett remarked that I never 
looked so well as on this pony, which seemed to be made for 
me. He had another pony, a smaller one, and this he sold 
to me. But it had a very nasty temper, and would some- 
times turn its head and try and bite my feet ; while it was 
continually rearing and kicking, and, in short, was a regular 
devil. One evening, when I went to dine at the mess of a 
Line regiment, I tied it up to a tree, but it managed to get 
rid of its bridle and bolted. It was only with difficulty 
caught, when I rode it home again. 

" Eugene," who had behaved so badly to me over the affair 

of Miss W , was not at Sialkote, having been sent to 

another station for his course. While at Murree, he had 
fallen desperately in love with a Miss B , and had pro- 
posed to, and been accepted by, her. But, as he was so 
very young, and the lady was not considered a desira^ble 

208 



An Ingenious Thief 

match, the Colonel took the matter up, and the affair was 
broken off. At the station he went to he fell in love with 
another lady, but this did not come to anything either ; and 
he nearly broke, not his heart, but his neck, there in riding 
a steeplechase. However, eventually he recovered from his 
" smash " and rejoined the battalion. 

I became very unwell at Sialkote, from what the doctor 
said was a liver complaint. However, it did not much 
interfere with my studies, though I was confined to the 
house for some time. During this period a curious incident 
occurred. 

One morning, I noticed that a candle, which I had placed 
by my bedside and blown out just before I fell asleep, was 
much r.horter than when I had extinguished it. The follow- 
ing night I carefully noted the length of the candle before 
I blew it out, and next morning it was again much shorter. 
I could find no explanation of this, as I had locked my 
bedroom door before going to bed, until I remembered that 
there \^ as a small opening at the bottom of the door, just 
large enough to j^ermit a person to wriggle through. But 
this did not account for the thief having been able to pass 
through my sitting-room, which led to the bedroom, and 
the door of which I had also locked. I talked the matter 
over with Lovett, who offered to lend me his dog, which 
he said was a very good watch-dog and could sleep on my 
bed. I accepted his offer, but the animal had so many 
fleas that I was kept awake all night, and decided to dispense 
with its company in future. The following night I deter- 
mined to watch myself, and presently heard someone crawl- 
ing through the opening of the door, I at once struck 
a light, upon which the intruder promptly crawled back 
again. Then everything appeared clear to me. The thief 
was none other than my bearer, who had a key to my sitting- 
room, which he opened, and then, crawling through the 
opening in the bedroom-door, made for my candle, which 
he abstracted and replaced by a much smaller piece. The 
natives are great pilferers, who will not stop at robbing one 
even of a piece of candle. 

209 14 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

One day, as I was sitting in my room, reading a book by 
Jean Paul, it seemed to me that suddenly the room began 
to swing to and fro. It proved to be an earthquake, which, 
however, did no damage to the town, though it gave every- 
one a bad fright. 

Soon after I was able to get about again there was an 
interval of three weeks in our course at Sialkote, and all 
the sub-lieutenants went away on leave. Montgomery 
went to Murree, while Lovett and Marsham started off on 
a shooting-expedition. The battalion, which was taking 
part in the autumn manoeuvres, was under canvas near 
Rawal Pindi, and I accepted an invitation to stay with 
Surgeon-Major Macnamara and his wife in their tent. The 
first evening I dined with them I noticed that I was served 
with precisely the dishes I liked, whilst those I did not care 
for were not handed to me at all. I inquired of Mrs. Mac- 
namara the reason of this, when she replied : — 

" I asked your khitmagar when you arrived what you 
liked for dinner, and what you did n6t like. Therefore, 
you see, I know now exactly what your taste is." 

Indeed, nothing could exceed the Macnamaras' kindness 
to me during the whole time I was with them. 

A couple of days later, Phipps invited me to go for a drive 
with him, during which he told me that he was returning 
to England on leave, when he would get his promotion, and 
he doubted whether he would ever come out to India again. 
That evening, after dining at mess, I was taken ill, when 
Surgeon-Major Macnamara, who attended me, said that J 
was suffering from jaundice, and should have to stay in bed 
some time. During my illness I received visits from one 
of the senior lieutenants named Hope, a grandson of Lord 
Hopetoun, who brought me several books to read, amongst 
them being " Cranford," by Mrs. Gaskell, which he parti- 
cularly recommended to me, and with which I was delighted. 
Lloyd, another senior lieutenant, with the local rank of 
captain, often came to see me. He wa^ a very dark, wiry 
fellow, of about thirty, and was a great sportsman. He 
was going into the Indian Staff Corps, as he spoke several 

210 



Death of Albert Phipps 

native languages fluently. Lloyd was a particular friend 
of mine, and corresponded with me regularly for years 
afterwards. 

One morning, I had a visit from Macnamara, who told me 
that Phipps had been taken seriously ill with congestion of 
the lungs, the result apparently of a chill which he had 
caught on the day I went for a drive with him. A few days 
later, I learned from Lloyd that Phipps had died during 
the night. When I next saw Macnamara, he remarked : — 

" Phipps was so stout ; I knew I could not save him. He 
died from suffocation, as he had such a short neck." 

When I was well enough to dine at mess again, I heard 
from the Colonel that, shortly before Phipps was taken ill, 
he had been told by the chief that his tunic was looking 
rather shabby, to which he had replied : — 

" Oh, sir, it's good enough to bury me in ! " 

He had laughed as he said this, which was a habit of his 
when he made any remark which was at all strange. 

A cable was sent to Queen Victoria, as well as to Phipps' s 
sister, announcing his death. Her Majesty cabled at once 
to the Colonel, asking for all particulars about the sad 
event, at which she appears to have been genuinely 
grieved. 

I was much cut up by Phipps's death, and I felt it all the 
more keenly, as I had been with him so recently. I remember 
how on that occasion he had kept talking of his approaching 
return to England, and had observed : — 

" I should have liked it very much in years gone by, but 
now I do not look forward to it with half the pleasure I did 
then; it may be because I have all my friends out here. 
I am so used to living out here with all the fellows, and 
they are all so nice, that I don't think I should go home 
now if I had not to do so." 

Poor Phipps was buried in his old tunic, as he had foretold 
in a jesting way to the Colonel. He was barely thirty years 
of age. 

After I had quite recovered from jaundice, I returned to 
Sialkote, which I did with regret, as I would have much 

211 14* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

preferred remaining with my regiment. At Sialkote things 
went on very much as before, the only incident worth 
recording being an accident to my pony " Chang." 

This pony, which I had bought soon after coming to 
Murree from Sydenham Clarke, the adjutant of our battalion, 
had the reputation of being the best polo-pony in India, 
and one day Lovett begged m.e to lend him to him for a 
match in which he was to play. I replied that " Chang " 
was not up to his weight, and that he would probably lame 
him ; but, eventually, on his promising most solemnly 
to ride him carefully, I consented, though with many mis- 
givings. Some hours later Lovett came into my room, 
looking very crestfallen. I knew at once what had happened, 
and exclaimed : — 

" You have lamed ' Chang ' ! " 

" Yes," he answered ; "I am frightfully sorry ; I could 
not help it." 

I ran out of the room to see the pony, who was so lame 
that there was no chance of his being of much service after- 
wards. However, it was no use blaming Lovett, since it 
was my own fault for being so weak as to allow a valuable 
animal to be ridden by a man too heavy for him. 

After this mishap, I was obliged to ride my little devil of 
a pony when I required a mount at Sialkote, though at 
times Lovett lent me his horse, while at others Wood lent 
me his good-looking chestnut pony. I made Wood an 
offer for this pony, but he declined to part with it at any 
price. 

I continued to suffer from liver complaint, and was 
attended by Surgeon-Major Clarke, of the R.H.A., who 
advised me to try and get sent to England. I subsequently 
saw the senior medical officer at Sialkote, who said that I 
ought to obtain leave either to the hills or to England. 
I appeared before a medical board, who certified in writing 
that my illness was caused in and by the Service. 

The Chief Resident at Sialkote offered me the Maharajah 
of Kashmir's shooting, which was usually reserved for royal 
personages, and which the Prince of Wales had when in 

212 



Agra 

India ; but Montgomery urged me strongly to go to England, 
and I followed his advice. I had afterwards, as the ensuing 
pages will show, good cause to regret my decision. 

Before leaving Sialkote, I made arrangements to sell the 
things I did not want ; but, on showing the list I had made 
out to Batchelor, of the R.H.A., he told me that I ought 
to have described them far more elaborately, so as to enhance 
their apparent value. I asked if he would describe them 
for me, which he did, and, greatly to my amusement, made 
everything appear infinitely better than it really was. 
However, he said that they would make much better prices 
that way, which I found to be the case when the sale took 
place. My pony "Chang" I sold to Montgomery, as he 
had partially recovered from his lameness. 

On leaving Sialkote, I went by rail to Delhi, where I 
visited the Palace, which I thought very beautiful. At 
Delhi I called on the officers of a Line regiment stationed 
there, and was invited to make use of their mess during 
my stay in the city, where great preparations were being 
made for an approaching Durbar. I left a few days later 
for Cawnpore, and visited the places by the river where 
the British were massacred during the Mutiny. On my way 
from Cawnpore to Agra, I made the acquaintance of a 
French cavalry officer, the Vicomte Arthur d'Assailly, of 
the Chasseurs a Cheval, a very smart-looking fellow, more 
like an Englishman than a Frenchman, who spoke English 
perfectly. The Vicomte told me that at Cawnpore he had 
paid several hundred rupees for a nautch in his room, which 
he had strewn with rose-leaves. On reaching Agra, we 
drove to our hotel through the Bazaar, and in the evening 
went to visit the Taj, with which we were quite enchanted. 
It was the most magnificent building I had ever seen. 
The marble of which it was constructed was of the purest 
white, and seen by moonlight, which enhanced the whiteness 
of the marble, it was indescribably beautiful ; while the 
deep blue of the starlit heavens formed a delightful contrast. 
It was, in fact, just like a palace of " The Arabian Nights " ; 
and while strolling about the charming gardens we could 

213 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

almost imagine ourselves living in the days of the Khalif 
Haroun Alraschid. 

In the train going to Bombay I met an officer of the 
Rifle Brigade, named Captain Crompton, a man of about 
thirty-five, with grey hair, who was going home on sick 
leave. But as, he told me, he was rather doubtful about 
being able to pass the medical board at Bombay, he intended 
to appear before them just as he was, without going to his 
hotel to change and wash, considering that he would look 
more like an invalid in that travel-stained condition. 

He was as good as his word, and obtained six months' 
sick leave without any trouble. As for myself, I went to 
Watson's Hotel, where I was glad to have a bath and change 
my clothes, as the journey had been a most unpleasant 
one, and I was begrimed with dirt. On appearing before 
the board, the senior medical officer asked me various ques- 
tions, to which I must have answered too laconically to 
please him, for presently he inquired sarcastically : — 

** And what may your rank be ; I suppose general or 
colonel at the least ? " 

" No," I replied ; "I am only a sub-lieutenant." 
" Oh, indeed ! I thought from your manner that you 
were at least in command of a regiment." 

However, after a brief examination, I was informed that 
I could go, and that I had been granted six months' leave 
to England, as my illness was caused in and by the Service. 

At Watson's Hotel I met d'Assailly again, who told me 
a good deal about himself. It appeared that he was a rich 
man, having an income of some £6,000 a year, and was 
amusing himself by travelling round the world. He had 
already visited Japan, Ceylon and Java, the last of which 
he considered by far the most beautiful of the three coun- 
tries, and, as regards vegetation, truly marvellous. He 
admitted that Ceylon was lovely, but, in his opinion, it 
could not compare with Java, the natives of which he also 
preferred to the Cingalese. 

I was very glad to leave Bombay in 1875, though, as I 
disliked the sea very much, I was not looking forward to 

214 



Voyage to England 

the voyage to England with any pleasurable anticipations. 
Among the passengers on board the troopship were Captain 
Crompton, a Lieutenant Howard, who beFonged to the 
Rifle Brigade, and Viscount Campden, of the 10th Hussars, 
whose younger brother, the Hon. H. Noel, was in the same 
battalion of the Rifle Brigade as Crompton and Howard. 
Lord Campden, who was an amiable young man, with a 
slight figure and reddish hair, occupied himself during the 
voyage by reading Darwin's " Natural Selection," which 
was seldom out of his hand, and did not talk much with 
anyone, with the exception of Crompton. 

There was a battalion of infantry on board, under the 
command of a Lieutenant-Colonel Rose, who had his wife 
and daughter with him. The latter, who was a charming 
little girl of thirteen, with golden hair and blue eyes, took 
such a violent fancy to Howard that the other officers used 
to chaff him and inquire whether he intended to wait until 
she grew up to marry her. Howard was a tall, good-looking 
fellow, with a fair moustache, and he seemed rather pleased 
than otherwise by the little lady's infatuation. 

The captain of the ship complained of Crompton dining 
in evening clothes, and requested him to appear in uniform 
in future. Crompton answered that he had no uniform 
on board, as he had come out to India to work as a civil 
engineer. But the captain would take no excuse, and in- 
sisted on his wearing uniform at dinner and also on deck. 
Crompton thereupon asked me if I could lend him part of my 
uniform, as it only differed in the facings, the facings of one 
regiment's mess-jacket being black velvet, and those of the 
other scarlet, braided with black lace, like the Hussars. 
The uniform of both regiments was the same, supposed to 
be a dark green, but really black. I therefore lent him 
part of my uniform, as I had more than I required on board ; 
but when he appeared in it at mess and on deck, the captain 
at first believed that it was his own, and that he had pur- 
posely avoided wearing it, and he had to explain that he 
had been obliged to borrow from me. 

During the voyage I was a good deal with Crompton, and 

215 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

had many interesting talks with him on all kinds of topics. 
He told me that his mother, who was dead, had published a 
translation of the poems of Heinrich Heine, which was 
considered to be the best that had appeared up to that time. 
She had held that this life was but a preparation for the one 
to come, and tKat whatever we cultivated in this existence, 
we should excel in in the next, and said that he was firmly 
convinced of the truth of this. He was a very clever man 
and had invented an automobile for the conveyance of 
troops, which he had sold to the Russian Government for 
£4,000, as the War Office would not pay him the price he 
asked. His knowledge, too, was astonishingly varied. Thus, 
when we touched at Malta, some of the ladies on board 
showed him the lace they had bought and told him the price 
they had paid for it, upon which he said that they had been 
imposed upon. For it appeared that he knew more about 
lace and how to make it than any lady on the ship, and I 
saw him showing them stitches which were quite new to 
them. 

There were, of course, a number of invalids on board, 
some of whom were very ill indeed. I occupied a cabin with 
a lieutenant of the 11th Hussars named Reid, who was in 
rapid consumption. He was a good-looking young fellow, 
vfith dark-brown curly hair, and very much liked by every- 
one. He survived the voyage, as did a sergeant-major of 
the R.H.A., whom no one had expected to live until we 
reached England ; but several other persons died, and were 
buried at sea. 



2l6 



CHAPTER XXI 

Baroness James Edouard de Rothschild — At Carlsbad — Trans- 
ferred to the 3rd Battalion 

AT Portsmouth, I was met by my father and Ernest 
Berkeley, a son of Lord Berkeley, who some time 
afterwards obtained a commission in my regiment, and 
with them I travelled to Paris and stayed for a few days 
with my parents in the Champs-Elysees. I then started 
for Carlsbad, where I had been recommended to take the 
waters for my complaint. On leaving Paris, I found myself 
in the same carriage with an elderly English lady, a Mrs. 
Michell, and her daughter, whose acquaintance I made. 
They were on their way to Marienbad, as the mother was 
abnormally stout and anxious to reduce her weight, life, 
she told me, being a torment to her. At Nuremberg, a rather 
nice-looking woman entered our carriage, with a very smart 
footman in attendance, who carried an immense bouquet 
of flowers, which he deposited beside his mistress. This 
lady, it transpired, was the Baroness James Edouard de 
Rothschild, who had been spending the night at Niiremberg, 
and was also en route for Marienbad. The Baroness entered 
into conversation with us, and was very pleasant. She 
spoke English almost perfectly, having spent nearly half 
her life in England, though she was now living with her 
family in Paris. She had, she told us, been ordered to take 
the waters at Marienbad, as she was inclined to be very 
stout, and had sent on fourteen servants from Paris to get 
everything ready for her. 

I got out at Carlsbad and drove to the Hdtel Goldenes 

217 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Schild, which was in those days the principal hotel. Next 
morning I consulted Dr. Ritter von Hochberg, the doctor 
of the German Emperor, who was a very nice old man, 
and who told me to drink two full glasses of the Schloss 
Brunn waters and then walk for half an hour in the country 
every morning before breakfast. I followed his instructions 
and, after drinking the waters, walked out to the Posthof, 
where I breakfasted in the open air at a very good restaurant, 
being served by a pretty young Austrian girl, who was very 
tastefully dressed, with her hair arranged in quite the latest 
fashion. The walk back to my hotel, along the banks of 
a river, which flowed through a delightfully picturesque 
valley, I enjoyed immensely. 

While dining one evening at the Hotel Konig von Han- 
nover, I made the acquaintance of a Mrs. Andrews, an 
elderly American lady, who was very rich and lived in an 
apartment in the English quarter of Carlsbad. She asked 
me to come and see her at her rooms, which were very com- 
fortable, and where she gave me a cup of English tea. 
Mrs. Andrews was very fond of taking drives into the 
country, and often invited me to accompany her. One day 
she introduced me to Freiherr von Klenck, the son of Baron 
von Klenck, who had been a great favourite of the late 
King of Hanover and always with him. Klenck, who was 
in a Hanoverian cavalry regiment, was a man of about 
thirty, with a fair moustache. He detested Prussians, and 
once, when I asked him if he would care to meet an 
officer in a Prussian Line regiment whose acquaintance I 
had made, he replied : — 

" It is all very well for you to know him, as you are not a 
German. But I could not be seen with him. First of all, 
he is a Prussian, and then he is in a Line regiment, so that 
I could not go about with him, since I am in a cavalry 
regiment, as you know." 

I usually met Mrs. Andrews and Klenck at the Hotel 
Konig von Hannover, where we would engage a small table 
and dine together, going after to Sans-Souci or the Posthof 
to hear the military concert, which was very fine indeed. 

2lS 



At Carlsbad 

The band which played there was that of the 35th Regiment 
Konig von Hannover, an Austrian military band, which had 
won the first prize at Brussels in the competition for military 
bands of all nations. It was composed of fifty men, and 
played the most difficult music of Wagner in the most 
brilliant manner, besides playing lighter music in a way 
which quite delighted me. In fact, it put all the military 
bands, English, French and German, that I had ever heard 
completely in the shade. A principal feature was that 
there were two men who played the cymbals, and that the 
big drum was an insignificant item, the side- drum being far 
more used. Sometimes, the band would play at Pupp's 
Cafe of an afternoon, while the people were taking their 
coffee at little tables. On these occasions, a fee of fifty 
kreuzers was charged for admission, and there was always 
great difficulty in securing seats. 

The Kurkapelle, or string band, which played on most 
days of the week, under the direction of the famous band- 
master, Auguste Labitzky, was one of the finest string bands 
in Europe. Every Friday afternoon Labitzky organized 
a classical concert at Posthof, for which an admission fee 
of fifty kreuzers was charged. One day was consecrated 
to Wagner, another to Mozart, a third to Beethoven, and 
on a fourth a programme of mixed classical music was 
performed. 

The places where afternoon coffee was taken were all in 
the country, people sitting at little tables under the trees. 
At Pupp's Cafe the waitresses had their Christian names, 
Mizzi, Fanni, Resi, and so forth, pinned on to their dresses. 
These girls were for the most part very pretty and pleasant- 
mannered. One gentleman, after having finished his cure 
at Carlsbad, received about twenty bouquets of beautiful 
flowers, which were all placed on his breakfast-table at 
Pupp's by the girls serving there. People said that it 
must have cost him at least a hundred florins in douceurs 
to the waitresses. 

When I asked my doctor how much I was in his debt, he 
told me that he left the matter entirely to me. So I put forty 

219 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

florins in an envelope, which the doctor dechned even to 
open in my presence, saying that he felt sure that I had 
remunerated his services sufficiently. 

After a cure of three weeks, I left Carlsbad for Franzensbad, 
for the after-cure, which my doctor had advised my taking. 
Here I secured very comfortable rooms in a villa with a 
beautiful garden behind it, agreeing to pay a fixed price 
per week for board and lodging. Shortly afterwards, the 
proprietress informed me that, had she but known that 
I was an Englishman, she would have asked me very 
much more than she had. She appeared very much 
annoyed, and, I am afraid, never forgave me for not 
having acquainted her with my nationality at our first 
interview. 

I thought Franzensbad a very charming place, with its 
pretty villas with gardens attached to them ; but the walks 
could not compare with those around Carlsbad. I was so 
tired after taking the waters at Carlsbad that I rested the 
whole time I was at Franzensbad, merely taking iron baths, 
which I found perfectly delightful. It was like bathing in 
champagne, as the water sparkled and gave one a tickling 
kind of sensation. The visitors at Franzensbad were chiefly 
ladies, but I made the acquaintance of a young Bavarian 
officer, Freiherr von Riidt, who was very musical and played 
the violin beautifully, and used to meet him nearly every 
day at the concert in the Kurpark. The Kurkapelle used 
to play at one or other of the hotels during supper, and 
I often went to these concerts. The bandmaster, Tomaschek, 
was a very good conductor and a great favourite with the 
ladies, who often sent him presents. 

During my stay at Franzensbad I paid a visit to Marienbad, 
where I renev/ed my acquaintance with Mrs. Michell and her 
daughter. I thought Marienbad even more beautiful than 
Carlsbad, surrounded as it was by woods and hills. The 
walks around it were really exquisite, and nothing could be 
more pleasant than to take a walk in the woods on a summer's 
day and have coffee and listen to the band at one of the 
caf6s. 

220 



Transferred to the 3rd Battalion 

On my return to Franzensbad I took a few more baths, 
and then left for Paris, where I received a letter from the 
War Office, informing me that I had been transferred to the 
3rd Battalion of my regiment, which was stationed at 
Chatham. 



221 



CHAPTER XXII 

My Brother-Officers — A Mesalliance — Christy Minstrels and Tobogganing 

IT was through the influence of the Adjutant-General, 
Lord Airey, that I had been transferred to the 3rd 
Battahon of the 60th Rifles, in June, 1875. On joining, I 
went into the officers' ante-room, where a short, stout officer, 
wearing an ej^eglass, addressed me, and inquired how I had 
managed to get transferred. I told him that it was through 
the A.-G., when he remarked : 

" How is it that I was not consulted ? " 

" I really cannot tell you," I answered. 

" H'm ! " said he, transfixing me with his monocle. 

A few minutes afterwards, when he had left the room, 
another officer came up to me, and said : — 

"Do you know who that is ? " 

" No." 

" That is our chief, Lieutenant-Colonel W. Leigh- 
Pemberton." 

"Is it really ? " said I. "I should never have thought 
it, for he looks too young for a colonel." 

" You have put your foot into it, evidently," replied the 
officer, who appeared highly amused at what had happened. 
His name, he told me, was Corbet St apleton- Cotton, and he 
was a lieutenant of some years' service. 

I had a room in barracks close to Cotton's, and, after my 
things had been unpacked, I dressed for mess. During 
mess I again exchanged a few words with the Colonel, who 
evidently looked upon me as an intruder, since he addressed 
me in a very distant manner. I was introduced to the acting 

222 



My Brother -Officers 

adjutant, E, O. H. Wilkinson (the adjutant, Lieutenant 
Bagot, had been suspended from that post by the Colonel), 
whom I had known at Eton, but had never cared for much. 
Wilkinson, who was a tall, dark man, with a slight squint, 
a long body and very short legs, imparted to me the pleasing 
information that I should have to begin my drill all over 
again from the commencement, at seven o'clock the follow- 
ing morning, so that I was likely to be kept well employed 
for some little time to come. I also made the acquaintance 
of my captain, Cramer, who was a middle-aged man with 
grey hair. He had little to say for himself, and was not 
remarkable for his amiability, but was very musical, and 
played the piano wonderfully well, though entirely by ear. 
Amongst other officers with whom I spoke that evening 
were a sub-lieutenant named Robert Gunning and a 
lieutenant called Allfrey. Gunning, who, like Cramer, in 
whose company he was, had been at Eton with me, though 
I had only known him very slightly there, was a rather good- 
looking little fellow, and a great favourite of the Colonel, 
who called him " Cupid," and often invited him to his 
quarters. Allfrey was a tall, burly man, with dark curly 
hair, who was very loud in both his dress and conversation, 
which was usually about horses. He was a great admirer 
of Thackeray's works, and declared that "Vanity Fair" 
was the best novel in the English language, and that he had 
read it over and over again without growing tired of it. 

Allfrey was a particular friend of Cotton, and I soon dis- 
covered that these two officers were the hetes-noires of the 
Colonel, who, it was said, could not even endure the sound 
of their voices, and would give anything in the world to 
get rid of them both. Our chief's dislike, however, was by 
no means confined to Cotton and Allfrey. Two senior 
lieutenants, named Holled-Smith and Allen, and a captain 
called Robinson, had also the misfortune to be objects of 
his antipathy, a fact which he was never at any pains to 
disguise. 

Holled-Smith was a fine-looking man, clever and enter- 
taining, but with a somewhat brusque maimer. He had 

223 ^ 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

a very good baritone voice, which he cultivated by taking 
singing lessons, and he sang some songs very well. Allen 
and Robinson were both singular characters. The former, 
who was expecting his company, was a queer-looking fellow, 
with a partially-bald head and a peculiarly vacant expression. 
He was always highly perfumed, so that you knew when 
he happened to be near you, before you saw him. His dress 
was very eccentric, and his manner too. He was perpetually 
muttering to himself, and would gesticulate in the most 
weird fashion when no one was talking to him. Robinson, 
who was nicknamed " Rabelais," as he was always reading 
that author's works, was a kind of Hercules, and was the 
eldest son of a baronet and the grandson of an Irish earl. 
He was very eccentric, and would suddenly — for no apparent 
reason — throw himself into the most violent passions, and 
indulge in language at which even a private soldier would be 
horrified. Strangely enough, he appeared to have little or 
no idea of the effect of these outbursts upon those who had 
the misfortune to be present : probably, he hardly knew 
what he was saying. It was related that, upon one occasion, 
he used this terrible language before a lady, who incon- 
tinently took to flight. " Rabelais " inquired afterwards why 
the lady had left so abruptly, and, on being told, remarked 
that she must have been uncommonly prudish. 

These two strange creatures disliked each other even 
more than the Colonel did them. One evening at mess, 
soon after I joined the battalion, I noticed that, though they 
were sitting next each other, they never exchanged a word 
the whole evening. I remarked upon this to one of the 
other officers, when I was told that they had not spoken 
to one another for years. 

The senior major, Northey, was a very tall, dark man, 
who was an excellent soldier and understood his work 
thoroughly ; but, unfortunately, his hands were tied by 
the Colonel, who seldom condescended to approve of any- 
thing he did. He was married to the daughter of a Polish 
nobleman, a refugee, whom he had met when the battalion 
was stationed in Canada. Major Northey was popular 

224 



A Mesalliance 

with the men, and liked by the officers, but he had no 
influence at all. 

The junior major, Collins, who was stout and wore an eye- 
glass, was also a married man. His wife was a sister of a 
bishop, and it was she who held the ribbons. Collins would 
have made a much better bishop than he did a field-officer, 
for he was a bad rider, who always felt uncomfortable on 
horseback, and, what is more, looked so. He seldom ven- 
tured on any observation concerning military matters 
before the Colonel, as when he did so, he generally got 
snubbed. The major took a great fancy to me, and often 
invited me to his house, where I sometimes met the bishop, 
who was delighted with my zither and paid me many 
compliments on my playing. 

Tufnell, the senior captain, was a gentleman who enter- 
tained a superlatively high opinion of himself. He must 
have been very handsome when young, but was now some- 
what "fane." He was very much in love with a girl named 
Miss Finis, the daughter of a butcher in Chatham, who, 
some years before, had been in love with my friend, Arthur 
Dillon. Poor Dillon, alas ! was no more, having been 
thrown out of a Ralli car and killed while stationed at 
Colchester. " He was such a good fellow, and a very 
promising officer," said Captain Byron, in the letter he wrote 
to me in India, to inform me of the sad event. 

Tufnell was so infatuated with Miss Finis that it was 
generally believed that he would end by marrying her. Nor 
was he the only officer in the battalion who was contemplating 
a mesalliance. There was another captain, called Car- 
penter, who was desperately in love with a pretty little shop- 
girl, who was only about sixteen. At first, the Colonel 
objected to Carpenter going about with this damsel, but 
when he learned that he was determined to marry her, he 
said nothing more, as Carpenter was a great friend of his. 
Carpenter retired some months afterwards, and married 
his little girl, who, I was told, made him a very good wife. 
His retirement was much regretted, as he was very popular 
with both officers and men. 

225 15 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 * 

The nicest captain in the battalion was de Robeck, who 
had been on the Staff of the Earl of Mayo, when Viceroy of 
India. He was a brother of Baron de Robeck, whom I 
already knew. De Robeck was a rather shy man, and 
dreadfully afraid of offending the Colonel. As time seemed 
only to accentuate the bad impression which I had been so 
unfortunate as to make upon our chief at our first meeting, 
partly owing to the fact that I was obliged to be a good 
deal in the company of Cotton and HoUed-Smith, whose 
quarters adjoined my own, I told de Robeck that I thought 
it would be best for me to exchange into another battalion. 
He, however, advised me not to do so, observing : — 

" The Colonel cannot stay with us very much longer, and 
in the 1st Battalion, into which you wish to exchange, 
they have a Colonel, Colonel Gordon, who, I am told, is 
much worse than ours. I hear that he has been the cause 
of no less than ten officers leaving the battalion, and the 
cases of desertion among the riflemen can hardly be counted." 
I told him that the Colonel of the 1st was soon retiring, 
while our chief would remain with us for another three 
years, which had to be taken into consideration. 

" No," he replied, " he has only two years more, thank 
God ! " 

I was always much influenced by what de Robeck told me, 
and generally followed his advice. I did so in this instance, 
but had I acted otherwise, it would have been much better 
for me. 

Among the senior lieutenants was one named Wylie, 
an absurdly pompous individual, who was disliked by both 
officers and men. One day, when I happened to be orderly 
offxcer, I had just come off parade and was standing by the 
officers' mess, when Wylie passed by. I wished him good- 
morning, but, because I did not salute him at the same time, 
though it was off the parade-ground, he reported me to the 
Colonel, who reprimanded me. Wylie was married to the 
sister of a recently-created peer, who, on the strength of 
this relationship, gave herself ridiculous airs, and was almost 
as pompous as her husband. 

226 



Christy Minstrels and Tobogganing 

Arthur Greville Bagot, an old Etoniaiij who was adjutant 
of the battalion by appointment, though, as I mentioned, 
suspended, was a very different kind of officer from Wylie. 
He was highly connected, being the cousin of a duke and 
the nephew of a peer, and was a thorough gentleman in 
every way. He was a very good-looking man, and when 
not in uniform, always dressed very smartly in the latest 
fashion. An excellent soldier, he kept the men in first-rate 
order, which Wilkinson never could do, and, as he was rather 
a friend of mine, he invariably took my part with the Colonel, 
with whom he was on pretty good terms. 

As there was very little going on at Chatham at any time 
in the way of amusement, Bagot organized from the battalion 
a troupe of Christy Minstrels, he himself taking the part 
of " Bones." I was asked to do my share, to which I willingly 
consented. We gave a performance in Chatham, which 
turned out a great success, a number of people having to be 
refused admission. The officers and men blackened their 
faces, and when I wished to re-enter Chatham Barracks, 
the sentry refused to let me pass, until I told him who I 
was. We gave a second performance at Chatham, which 
was so well attended that we agreed to engage the theatre 
at Gravesend and give an entertainment there. The result 
exceeded our most sanguine expectations, the theatre being 
crammed, while over four hundred people were turned 
away from the doors. Bagot made most amusing jokes, 
and sang several very good comic songs ; Carpenter gave a 
solo on the concertina, besides singing in the chorus, and 
my performance ' on the zither was warmly applauded, and 
I got an encore. The ensemble was excellent for that style 
of entertainment ; quite as good as any professional troupe, 
and the singing was above the average. 

During the winter we had a heavy fall of snow, and, as 
most of the officers of the battalion had served in Canada, 
and had done a great deal of tobogganing there, this amuse- 
ment was indulged in down the hill close to the mess. The 
toboggans were made to contain two persons, one sitting 
behind, and the other between his legs in front ; and many 

227 15* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

of the officers would place a lady in front of them on their 
toboggans, and come down the hill at a terrific pace, the 
ladies sometimes giving vent to piercing shrieks, from fear 
of getting a spill. Now and again a toboggan would upset, 
and send its occupants flying ; but, as they usually fell into 
the snow banked up on either side of the track, it was very 
rarely that they were in the least hurt. 



228 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Sarah Bernhardt in PMdre — Vienna and Buda-Pesth 

WHEN I got my winter's leave, I started for Paris, 
to see my parents ; intending afterwards to visit 
Vienna and Buda-Pesth. On the last evening of my stay 
in Paris, I went to the Theatre-Fran$ais, to see Sarah Bern- 
hardt and Mounet Sully in Phedre. The latter' s acting was 
very fine, but Sarah Bernhardt was simply magnificent. 
The way in which she recited Racine's lines in her charming, 
musical voice, with its pretty timbre, was a real pleasure to 
listen to ; while in the last scene she rose to the supreme 
heights of tragedy. I do not think I was ever more delighted 
in my life with a theatrical performance than I was with 
the splendid acting that night at the Theatre-Fran9ais, as 
it surpassed all my expectations. 

On my journey to Vienna next day, I had as a travelling 
companion an Austrian gentleman called Herr Neuss, who, 
on my happening to mention my visit to the Theatre- 
Fran9ais the previous evening, observed that, in his opinion, 
the Burg Theatre, in Vienna, was the first theatre in Europe, 
and invited me to accompany him one evening to see a play 
of Shakespeare acted there. Herr Neuss told me that, 
from the way I spoke German, he had at first taken me for 
a German student, and that he was surprised to learn that I 
was an officer of the British Army. 

On my arrival in Vienna, which was enveloped in a white 
mantle of snow, I went to the Hotel Matschakerhof, which 
had been recommended to me, and which I found very 
comfortable. I lost no time in calling on Herr Neuss, who 

229 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

presented me to his wife and their three young and pretty 
daughters, who were quite charming. I was invited to 
return to supper, and afterwards two of the girls played on 
two grand pianos which stood in the drawing-room. They 
both played beautifully, and had evidently been most 
admirably taught. An evening or two later, I went with 
Herr Neuss to the Burg Theatre, to witness a performance of 
Romeo and Juliet, which was wonderfully well staged. The 
part of Juliet was played by Fraulein Frank, a very good- 
looking brunette, who acted well, though in the very tragic 
scenes she occasionally showed too much emotion. Another 
evening I saw Fraulein Frank in the Junghau von OrlSmis, 
a part which suited her infinitely better than that of Juliet ; 
and in which she was truly marvellous. I also saw the cele- 
brated Charlotte Wolter in Richard III., in which play 
Lewinsky took the part of the King. I was very much 
impressed by the latter' s acting, but I was decidedly dis- 
appointed with Charlotte Wolter, whom ^ considered inferior 
to Fraulein Frank, though the public thought otherwise. 
Wolter, indeed, in the opinion of the Viennese, was an ideal 
actress, and, in certain plaj^s, they even preferred her to 
Sarah Bernhardt. 

I was charmed with the military concerts at Vienna. Of 
an afternoon I several times went to the Volksgarten, where 
the people sat at little tables sipping coffee and smoking 
cigarettes. The military band, the Hoch and Deutsch- 
meister, which played, was a string band, and the solo 
players were all very good. I was quite delighted with the 
way the band played a march, so differently from the sleepy 
fashion in which our English military bands played one. 
As is always the practice with an Austrian military band, 
when playing marches, a great deal of use was made of the 
cymbals in forte parts. They also played waltzes delight- 
fully, and polkas with the proper rhythm, which so seldom 
happens. The Hoch and Deutschmeister played the most 
difficult music from the Nibelungen Ring, of Wagner, equally 
well, but their chief success was with light music, in which 
they were unrivalled. 

230 



Vienna and Buda-Pesth 

On Sundays Johann Strauss's band played in the Musik- 
verein's Saal, under its accomplished conductor, who 
always charmed the audience with its beautiful waltzes 
and inspiriting polkas. Yet everyone said that his band 
was very inferior to the string bands of the regiments stationed 
in Vienna. I heard Johann Strauss's band play more 
than once, and though I was pleased with it, the military 
band had far more attraction for me. 

I paid a visit one evening to Schwender's, a dancing-hall, 
where, to the strains of a military band, people danced till 
the small hours of the morning, and was struck with the 
orderly manner in which those present conducted them- 
selves. It was a great contrast to the scenes witnessed 
at similar resorts in England in those days, where drunken- 
ness amongst both sexes was a common feature. 

The Opera House, whose orchestra was quite the finest 
in Europe, had, of course, a great fascination for me. 
Wagner was then directing his operas, Tannhduser and 
Lohengrin, and they were admirably rendered. Fraulein 
Ehnn and Frau Materna created the chief women's roles, 
and Winkelmann and Ritter were the leading tenors. A 
great feature at the Opera was the ballet, in which the 
premiere dansev.se, Bertha Linda, delighted everyone with 
her graceful dancing, while the corps de ballet was excellent. 
Bertha Linda married the celebrated artist Makart, at 
that time the greatest painter in Austria. 

From Vienna I went to Buda-Pesth, where I stayed at 
the Hotel Konigin von England. On the evening of my 
arrival, a gipsy band began playing during dinner, and 
continued until long past midnight. They played in a 
really wonderful manner, and collected a great deal of money. 
I visited the "Nepsinhaz" and other theatres in Pesth, and 
one evening went to a dancing-hall, where I saw the Csardas 
danced most beautifully, a,nd made the acquaintance of 
a young girl of fourteen or fifteen, named Tournay Wilma, 
a pupil at the theatre, who had a lovely contralto voice. 
She accompanied me back to my h6tel, and sang to me until 
the small hours of the morning. 

231 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

I thought Buda-Pesth beautifully situated, with the 
Emperor's castle at Buda, and the Danube flowing between 
the two towns, but I would have infinitely preferred to live 
in Vienna, which is a far finer city. On my return there, I 
went several times to the Opera to hear Manfred, Don Juan 
and Figaro's Hochzeit, and then, after calling on Herr Neuss 
and his family, bade farewell to this most charming of capitals. 

I may mention that, during my stay in Vienna, I took 
lessons on the zither from the celebrated Paschinger, who 
was quite a brilliant performer on that instrument, besides 
being a good violinist, and played the violin and occasionally 
the zither at one of the principal theatres, where he was 
first violinist. I also invested in a zither-table, which I 
purchased at Kiendl's, who made the best zithers in Europe. 

While in Vienna and Buda-Pesth, I was much impressed 
by the appearance of the troops I saw. Among the cavalry, 
which was then considered the finest in Europe, the Hussars 
struck me as being remarkably well mounted, while the 
•officers' uniform was very smart. The Dragoons, whose 
officers were mostly of the nobility, as were those of the 
Lancers, were also well mounted ; while the Arciren Guards, 
who corresponded to our Life Guards, were a fine body of 
men, in green uniforms with red facings. There were at 
this time, in the Austrian Army, sixteen regiments of Hussars, 
the same number of Lancer regiments, and twelve regiments 
of Dragoons. The Hussars were all Hungarians, the 
Dragoons Austrians, and the Lancers Bohemians and 
Poles. The infantry was also very fine, and the uniform of 
the officers, though they wore no gold lace at all, very smart. 



232 



CHAPTER XXIV 

Percy Hope-Johnstone — A " Special" to Aldershot — A Costume- 
Ball at Folkestone 

SOON after my return to Chatham, my company had 
to go to Gravesend for a course of musketry. The 
officers who went were Cramer, Gunning and myself. We 
had to superintend the shooting of the men, though the 
musketry instructor, a lieutenant named Hope-Johnstone, was 
also present. Percy Hope-Johnstone, who was very popular 
with everyone, was a fine, powerfully-built man, and a very 
good shot, both with gun and rifle. He took great interest 
in the men's shooting, and was a most capable instructor. 
He was the heir to a baronetcy, and in later years laid claim 
to the peerage of Annandale, but his claim was not successful. 

One day, Hope-Johnstone lent me his horse on the range, 
and the animal, not being accustomed to so light a weight, 
bolted with me, and set off at a furious gallop through the 
town. Fortunately, however, he soon ran himself out, and 
stopped of his own accord. 

Hope-Johnstone often went with Gunning and myself 
for walks in the country around Gravesend. On one occasion, 
when we were sitting by the Thames, he said to us : — 

" Supposing neither of you had any money at all. What 
would you do to learn a living ? " 

Gunning replied that he should become an actor ; and 
they both said that they were sure that I could play the 
zither at concerts, and make a good deal of money by this. 
Then Hope-Johnstone remarked : — 

" I know what I should do. I am a very fine fellow, well- 
built, rather imposing in appearance. Therefore, I should 

233 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

be a footman, which is a devilish easy life, nothing to do 
and plenty to eat and drink." 

Hope-Johnstone told me that he had a younger brother 
in the Guards, who had told him that he was not allowed 
to recognize in London officers of other regiments whom he 
had met in the country, unless he were introduced to them 
in town, and the same rule applied to civilians whom an 
officer of the Guards had met in the country. Hope-John- 
stone said he much preferred life in a Rifle regiment, as he 
was far more free to do as he liked, and could obtain more 
leave than a subaltern in the Guards. He intended retiring 
from the Service so soon as he got his company, as he was 
very well off. 

Allen, whose eccentricities I have mentioned elsewhere, 
came to Gravesend with his company, and used to walk 
about the town with his pockets full of sweets, which he 
would give to any pretty children whom he happened to 
meet. He brought with him a rather smart dog-cart and 
some fine horses, and sometimes took me for a drive, during 
which he used to entertain me with an account of the charms 
of a young flower-girl at Folkestone, whom he had known 
since she was quite a child, and whom he intended to marry, 
although she was only sixteen and he was forty. He did 
marry her, in fact, not long afterwards, when the Colonel 
insisted on his exchanging into another battalion, stationed 
in India. The officers' wives called upon her, out of com- 
passion, it would seem, for the miserable life v/hich she led. 
For Allen was so fearfully jealous that he even went to the 
length of locking the poor girl up in the house whenever he 
went out. He was subsequently transferred to another 
regiment, but his jealousy of his wife continued down to 
the time of his death, which occurred soon after he had 
been promoted major. 

When the musketry-course was over, I returned with my 
company to Chatham. One day, I went with Cotton to 
Southend, and we missed the last train back. Cotton said 
that he must get back that night, as he was on duty next 
morning, and asked the station-master if he could have a 

334 



A ** Special *' to Aldershot 

special train, when that official said that, if we would keep 
quiet, he would put us in a luggage-train, which was just 
on the point of starting. We were put into a van, which 
was half-filled with coal, and had anything but a pleasant 
journey, as there was nothing but the floor — and the coal — 
to sit upon. However, we reached our destination in the 
early morning, in time for Cotton to assume his duties as 
orderly officer. 

Cotton told me that once, when stationed at Aldershot, 
he went up to town for the day, and missed the last train 
back. A lieutenant in the Rifle Brigade, named Crofton, 
who was in a like predicament, asked Cotton if he would 
come with him in a " special," which he had just ordered, 
and the latter, of course, gladly consented. When they 
were nearing Aldershot, Crofton said : — 

" I will send you your half of the bill for the ' special ' 
as soon as I get it. It will be a matter of forty pounds." 

Cotton, however, did not see the force of this, as he had 
quite understood that Crofton, who was a very rich man, 
had invited him to come with him. Consequently, he 
refused to pay any part of the bill. 

It was no wonder that Cotton occasionally missed trains, 
for he was constantly late for parade, for mess, and, indeed, 
for everything. One day, the Colonel, between whom and 
Cotton there was little love lost, remarked : — 

" Cotton, you are always late ; I am sure you will be late 
for your own funeral ! " 

Cotton, who was a grandson of Viscount Combermere, 
and whose father, the Hon. Sir C. Stapleton-Cotton, was 
a general of cavalry, died after the Zulu War of fever. 

Cotton and I often dined together at a small hotel at 
Rochester, which, if I am not mistaken, was the one where 
Mr. Pickwick stayed on the night of the ball at Rochester, 
described by Dickens. Occasionally we would converse in 
French, which Cotton spoke well, though, singularly enough, 
he had never been in France. At this hotel, we occasionally 
met two officers of the Rifle Brigade, Viscount Bennet, son 
of the Earl of Tankerville, and Lord Torphichen, the last- 

335 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

named officer an old Etonian, who would join us at dinner. 
Lord Bennet's mother was a French lady, and he used to 
make very clever jokes in French, which, however, lost by 
being repeated in English, on account of the jeu de mots. 

Not long after my return from Gravesend, I was sent 
with Gunning to Dover, to go through a final course of 
instruction there, before sitting for my lieutenant's examina- 
tion, and attached to the 104th Regiment at the Shaft 
Barracks. I was allotted a very comfortable room in the 
barracks, and Colonel Graeme, who was then commanding 
the 104th, was very pleasant to me, as was a captain named 
Hunter, with whom I soon became very friendly. Our 
instruction, which was conducted by a Captain Savile, of 
the Staff College, occupied most of the morning and part 
of the afternoon, but by four o'clock we were generally 
free. My friends, the Charltons, were still living in Victoria 
Park, and naturally I lost no time in calling upon them. 
They were very pleased to see me again, and talked a great 
deal about poor Dillon, to whom, it appeared, Augusta, the 
eldest daughter, had become engaged to be married just 
before he met with his fatal accident. Ida, the second girl, 
who seemed even prettier than when I had last seen her, 
told me that she was engaged to a lieutenant in the 12th 
Lancers named Beck, a very nice young fellow, who had 
been with me at Sandhurst, and whom I had liked very 
much there. 

Mrs. Charlton, as hospitable as ever, told me that I must 
come to supper the following Sunday, and bring a friend with 
me, as I used to do v^^hen poor Dillon was alive. I gladly 
accepted her invitation, and asked Gunning to come with 
me. But he excused himself, explaining that he was related 
to the Charltons, but that, owing to some family quarrel, 
his parents were not on good terms with them. I then asked 
a lieutenant of the 7th Fusiliers, named Foley, who was 
only too pleased to go. He fell in love with Augusta at 
first sight, and he and I used to go every Sunday evening 
to supper in Victoria Park. 

Foley, who was a nephew of Lord Foley, was a very nice 

336 



A Costume -Ball at Folkestone 

fellow indeed and a great friend of mine. He was very witty 
and amusing, and not infrequently exercised his wit at the 
expense of Gunning, who, though he rather fancied himself 
at repartee, and could more than hold his own against most 
people, invariably got the worst of it when he crossed swords 
with Foley. 

While I was at Dover, a big fancy-dress ball took place at 
Folkestone, to which Robartes, of the 11th Hussars, and I 
went with the Charltons. It was a very smart affair indeed, 
a number of people coming down from London for it, and 
some of the costumes were very fine. One lady, the Hon. 
Mrs. Yorke, whose husband was an officer in the Guards, 
wore a Greek peasant girl's costume, which was much admired. 
Mrs. Yorke had, I think, the smallest feet for an English- 
woman that I have ever seen, which the white trousers she 
wore enabled her to display to advantage. Mrs. Charlton 
wore some magnificent lace, which a lady with whom I 
danced told me must be worth at least two or three hundred 
pounds. When I happened later in the evening to mention 
this to Mrs. Charlton, she exclaimed : — 

" Two or three hundred ! The lace on my dress is worth 
nearer three thousand. It is of Charles II. 's time." 

It was nearly four o'clock in the morning before we left 
the ball-room, having all enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. 
Robartes and I were photographed with the girls a few days 
later at Dover, they in the fancy dresses they had worn 
at the ball, and we in our uniform. 

When our examination for the rank of lieutenant took place, 
Foley and myself passed very well in the first class and had 
our commissions ante-dated two years ; Robartes, of the 11th 
Hussars, and Gunning only succeeded in getting a " second." 
The examination was a very stiff one, and a major of the 
104th remarked that it ought almost to have qualified us 
for generals instead of lieutenants. 



237 



CHAPTER XXV 

The Oppenheims — St. James's and "Winchester — The Colonel and 
Beauclerk 

SHORTLY after I had passed my lieutenant's examina- 
tion, I was sent to Woolwich, where a detachment 
of my battalion was to do duty for the Horse Artillery. The 
room I was given, which belonged to an officer of the R,H.A., 
was a much better one than I had had in other barracks, 
and was furnished with some attempt at luxury. In the 
evening, I dined at the Royal Artillery mess, where their 
very fine string band played an excellent selection of music, 
under the direction of its Austrian bandmaster, Ritter von 
Zauerthal. I was often on guard at Woolwich, which I 
found very tiresome, as the guard was turned out at night 
as well as by day, and, as my turn to be on guard came round 
three times a week, it was pretty stiff work. 

While I was at Woolwich, a very smart ball was given at 
the barracks, which v/as highly successful, the great variety 
of uniforms and the toilettes of the ladies combining to make 
an unusually pretty scene, and an excellent supper being 
provided. To this ball I invited my old Eton friend, Jim 
Doyne, who, seeing all the men in uniform, mistook an 
officer who had come in evening dress for a waiter, and asked 
him to fetch an ice for a lady. The officer, however, took the 
mistake in very good part, and did as he was asked, remarking 
as he handed the ice to the lady, whom he happened to 
know : — 

" I am very pleased to make myself useful, and, as I have 
come in evening clothes instead of in uniform, I can quite 
understand your partner taking me for a waiter." 

238 



The Oppenheims 

During my visit to Vienna, Herr Neuss had given me a 
letter of introduction to Frau Oppenheim, the wife of a 
wealthy wine-merchant in London, who, before her marriage, 
when she was known as Louise Epstein, had been an actress 
at the Burg Theatre, and had been considered the most 
beautiful woman in the Austrian capital. I called upon 
her and found her very charming, though few traces of the 
beauty which had captivated so many hearts, including, 
it was said, that of a British Ambassador, now remained. 
Her husband, an immensely stout man, invited me to dinner 
and gave me a most excellent one, arrosl with his choicest 
wines. In return, I invited the Oppenheims to lunch 
with me at Woolwich, and asked a lieutenant of my battalion 
named Featherstone to meet them. Featherstone, I am 
afraid, was somewhat disappointed with Madame' s looks, 
as he had been expecting to see a much younger woman. 

After lunch, which was served in a private room at the 
mess, Herr Oppenheim expressed a wish to see the 80-ton 
gun fired for the first time, but I told him that it was im- 
possible, as he was a foreigner. However, he protested that 
he had lived so many years in England that he had almost 
come to look upon himself as an Englishman, and at length 
he persuaded me to take him. When the great gun was 
fired, the worthy wine-merchant was so alarmed that he 
staggered backwards, exclaiming : " Acli, du lieber Gott ! " 
And had it not been for a man standing by, who supported 
him in his arms, and whom his v/eight nearly upset, he would 
have fallen down. 

When I invited a friend to dine with me at the Artillery 
mess, as I frequently did, I was obliged to be there to receive 
him ; otherwise, he would not be admitted. On my inquiring 
the reason for this rule, I was told that one evening a man 
presented himself at the mess, saying that he had been 
asked to dine by a certain officer, whose name he gave. The 
officer in question did not put in an appearance, and when 
dinner was announced, his supposed friend was invited to 
sit down to table, which he did. Presently, the attention 
of one of the mess- waiters was attracted by the singular 

239 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

behaviour of this individual, who was calmly pocketing as 
many spoons and forks as he could lay his hands on, when- 
ever he fancied that he was unobserved. The mess-waiter 
reported these proceedings to the mess-president, and the 
man was at once given in charge, when it was discovered 
that he was a well-known thief. The Artillery mess was 
a very large one, from two hundred to three hundred officers 
sitting down to table, many of whom brought guests with 
them. Consequently, they had to be very careful, as there 
was always so much silver lying about. 

As it was summer, I frequently went up to London by 
steam-boat, which was a very pleasant way of making the 
journey. My companion on these river- trips was a lieu- 
tenant of my battalion, named Ernest Hovell Thurlow, an 
exceedingly nice fellow, who wore an eyeglass and appeared 
to take life in a very philosophical manner, as he never 
allowed himself to be put out by anything. He was a grand- 
son of Lord Thurlow, and his mother had been a Miss Leth- 
bridge. He was married, but his wife, a very pretty woman 
with wavy, golden hair, was staying in town for the 
season. 

After we had been some months at Woolwich, our detach- 
ment received orders to relieve the Grenadier Guards at St. 
James's Palace. We detrained at Waterloo Station and 
marched to the Palace, in front of which the band of the 
Grenadiers was playing while the guard was being mounted. 
Our Colonel, who had come up to tov/n expressly for this 
ceremony, and was in plain clothes, sent me to tell the Grena- 
diers' band to stop playing, at which the bandmaster, Dan 
Godfrey, appeared to be rather surprised. However, he 
obeyed the order, when the band of our battalion played 
in its turn, after which the guard was relieved. 

I had a very comfortable room in St. James's Palace, 
where I slept while I was on guard there, and, with the other 
officers, was made an honorary member of the Guards' Club. 
I found the duties rather fatiguing, as the sentries to be 
visited were so far apart. The officers of the Guards always 
visited them in hansom-cabs, but Captain Tufton, who was 

240 



St. James's and Winchester 

in command of our detachment, would not allow me this 
luxury, and I had to go on foot. 

I invited Jim Doyne to dine with me one evening at the 
Palace. The dinner was excellent, and was provided free 
of cost to the officers, though they had to pay 15s. for each 
guest. The champagne was very good and the liqueurs 
as well, and a bottle of brandy was opened which was of the 
year of the Battle of Waterloo. Amongst the guests was a 
Lieutenant Childe-Pemberton, who was formerly in our 
regiment, but was then in the " Blues." 

After I had been a short time at St. James's Palace, my 
battalion was ordered to the Tower. But the Colonel, who 
had a good deal of influence at the War Office, persuaded 
them to countermand this order and send it to Winchester 
instead, where the detachment from St. James's joined it. 

I had very comfortable quarters at Winchester, and life 
there was very pleasant, as the country round was very 
pretty, and we were invited to all the best houses in the 
neighbourhood. One of the most pleasant houses to which 
I went was that of Lady Frederick. It was a charming old 
residence, standing in the midst of beautiful grounds, 
and Lady Frederick and her son were most kind and 
hospitable. 

The depot of the Rifle Brigade was also at Winchester, 
and the officers, some of whom were very nice fellows indeed, 
frequently dined at our mess. Amongst them was a Lieu- 
tenant F. Howard, whose acquaintance I had made on the 
troopship returning from India, and whom I was very pleased 
to meet again. He told me that he was now married and 
invited me to dine with him and his wife. I did so, and had 
a most pleasant evening, as both the Howards were very 
musical, Mrs. Howard having a very good voice, while her 
husband was quite an accomplished pianist. 

Sir George Nares, the Arctic explorer, was living at Winches- 
ter at the time with his wife and daughters. I made their 
acquaintance at a dance, and was often invited to tea at their 
house, after which I used to play tennis or croquet with the two 
girls, both of whom were very good-looking, or go with them 

241 16 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

for a country-walk. Sometimes when I called Sir George 
Nares would ask me to have a glass of madeira, from one 
of the remaining bottles of a case of that wine which had 
made the voyage with him. He did not show any traces 
of the privations which he had endured in the Arctic ; but 
he was a very quiet man, who did not talk much and kept 
a good deal to himself. Not long after I came to Winchester, 
the family removed to a house near Surbiton, where they 
nvited me to visit them. While I was there, the elder 
daughter met with a very sad accident. She was running 
downstairs, when the heel of her shoe caught in a stair-rod 
and she fell on her back, injuring her spine so badly that she 
died six months later. She was only eighteen. Her younger 
sister married a missionary some years later, and went out 
to South Africa. 

Several officers from the 2nd Battalion, with which I 
had served in India, were at the depot, including Surgeon- 
Major Macnamara, Beauclerk, Lovett, and a captain named 
Brownrigg. Brownrigg was a fine-looking man, though with 
' a tendency to embonpoint, and a very nice fellow as well, but 
he had an unfortunate M'^eakness for liqueurs. He used to 
mix two or three together, and whenever anyone came to 
see him would invite them to have " a two-bottle trick " 
or " a three-bottle trick " with him. Brownrigg married not 
long afterwards and left the Service, but died suddenly, 
six months later. Probably, the two and three bottle 
tricks in which he was so fond of indulging had undermined 
his health. 

It was rarely that the officers went up to town from Win- 
chester, as the journey was rather too long, and there was 
plenty of amusement to be found in and around Winchester. 
The music at the cathedral had a great attraction for me, 
and I was never tired of listening to the magnificent playing 
of the organist, Dr. Arnold. I took lessons in composition 
from Dr. Arnold, which interested me very much, although 
Howard declared that he could not understand anyone! 
wishing to be initiated into the mysteries of harmony and^ 
counterpoint ; which, he said, was a kind of higher mathe-| 

242 



The Colonel and Beauclerk 

matics and destroyed the illusion which music produces 
on the senses. 

The Colonel was his own absolute master at Winchester, 
as there was no general there to look after him, and gave 
himself and his battalion a rest, the parades being few and 
far between and the guards easy. Except for pottering about 
the mess-room and his work at the orderly-room of a morning 
our chief had little to do, and, from want of some better 
occupation, made himself more than usually objectionable 
to such of the officers as he did not happen to like. Beau- 
clerk, w^ho had been at the depot for some time, was trans- 
ferred to our battalion, at which I was very pleased, as he 
was a very nice fellow and a perfect gentleman, though a 
little inclined to be conceited. Unfortunately, the Colonel 
at once took a dislike to Beauclerk, owing to some jesting 
remark which the latter let fall while playing billiards with 
him, which he considered was wanting in respect, though 
any ordinary person would have seen nothing offensive 
in it. Next day, the chief appointed him to Robinson's 
company, well knowing that Beauclerk v/ould never tolerate 
the manner in which that eccentric personage was in the habit 
of treating his subalterns, whom he seldom condescended to 
address except to find fault with them, which he did in not 
the politest of language. Sure enough, one fine day, Beau- 
clerk complained to the Colonel of the language which " Rabe- 
lais " had used towards him, and v/hen the Colonel refused 
to listen to him, sent in his papers, which was, of course, 
just what our amiable chief wanted him to do. He was a 
great loss to the regiment, and his retirement was much 
regretted. 



243 16* 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Paris Again — Eccentricities of Captain " Rabelais " — A Fire in 
Barracks — A Trying Inspection 

MY next winter leave I spent in Paris with my parents, 
who now occupied an appartement at No. 65, Rue 
de Morny, Champs-Elysees, and, as the winter season in the 
French capital was in full swing, had a very gay time of it. 
An ong the balls to which I went was one given by Mrs. 
Hungerford, the mother of the well-known Mrs. Mackay, 
which was a very grand affair indeed, and at which dancing 
v/as kept up until nearly five in the morning. I met Mrs. 
Mackay shortly afterwards, when calling on Mrs. Hungerford. 
She spoke Spanish quite fluently, and was at this time very 
intimate with Isabella, the ex-Queen of Spain, to whose house 
she was often invited. She was, as usual, beautifully dressed, 
and in the most perfect taste. Another ball I attended was 
given by Mrs. Keogh, an Irish lady, where I danced the 
cotillon with a very lovely young Russian girl, a cousin of 
the Empress of Russia, who, together with her sister, was made 
a great deal of at that time in Paris society. I also went to 
a bal-masque at the Opera with an American friend named 
Willing. There was a great crowd there, all the women 
being, of course, masked and in fancy costumes. I went 
into Baron Alphonse de Rothschild's box to pay my respects 
to Madame Adelsdorfer, a great friend of Lady Holland, 
with whom she stayed when in London, and she invited me 
to accompany her on the following evening to the " Ita,liens," 
where we heard Albani sing in La Sonnambula. I was 
delighted with Albani's voice and also with her acting. 

244 



Paris Again 

Another evening, I went to see Salvini in La Morte civile, 
by Giacometti. Mile. Masini, a young girl, played the part 
of the daughter, whom Salvini tries to kiss when he dies. 
She offers up a prayer for him on her knees, which so affected 
the audience that nearly the whole house was in tears. I 
saw Salvini on two other occasions : in 11 Gladiatore, when 
I sat next to a very pretty girl, who pointed out to me a 
middle-aged man with a grey beard, whom she told me was 
Alphonse Daudet, the celebrated novelist, and again in 
Othello, when Mile. Checchi Bozzo played Desdemona. She 
and Salvini acted magnificently and delighted everyone. 
Mile. Checchi Bozzo died suddenly two days after I had seen 
her in Othello ; she was only twenty-two, and her death 
caused a great sensation in Paris. 

Amongst other plays which I saw were Madame de Girar- 
din's la Joie fait Peur, Alfred de Musset's II ne faut jurer 
de rien, and Augier's Philiberte, at the Theatre-Franyais, 
in all of which the acting was admirable, and a very amusing 
piece called la Boule, by Meilhac and Halevy, at the Theatre- 
du Palais-Royal. 

One Sunday afternoon I went to Pasdeloup's concert, 
where they played the Septuor of Beethoven beautifully. 
The greatest attraction there was Sivori, who performed a 
violin solo in the most wonderful manner. Sivori was 
Paganini's best pupil, and Lord Berkeley used to say that 
he preferred Sivori to any violinist he had ever heard, as he 
always played with so much feeling, and eschewed those 
complicated pieces which resemble gymnastic exercises 
for the fingers, and serve no better purpose than to enable 
the violinist to display his execution. 

At the Grand Opera I heard VAfricaine, of Meyerbeer, 
which was marvellously well-staged. Madame Krauss sang 
the title-part. She was an Austrian, from Vienna, but sang 
at the Paris Opera for years, and was quite famous there. 
I also heard Robert le Diable — or rather part of it, for my 
father, who was with me, could not sit it out. So we adjourned 
to Thorpe's, where we met Tom Hohler, whom I have men- 
tioned earlier in this volume, and remained talking to him 

245 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

for some time. Tom Hohler v/as now married to Henrietta, 
Duchess of Newcastle, and they lived in the Avenue d'Antin, 
While in Paris, I visited a great many old friends, including 
Eugenie de Lavalle and Gabriellc Tercin, with whom I went 
one evening to the Scala and supped with them afterwards 
at a neighbouring restaurant. Another evening, I v/ent 
with the former to the Folies Dramatiques to see les Cloches 
de Corneville, in which Juliette Girard acted and sang remark- 
ably well and was very graceful. I also renewed my 
acquaintance with Mrs. Michell and her daughter, whom I 
had not seen since I was at Marienbad, and whom I came 
across one day while walking on the Boulevards, and with 
the Vicomte Arthur d'Assailly, whom I had met in India. 
The Vicomte lived in the Rue Las Cases, and was a member 
of the Jockey Club, but he preferred les Mirlitons, he told 
me, as they gave many evening entertainments, and he v/as 
passionately fond of music. 

When my leave was Up, I rejoined my battalion at Alder- 
shot, to which it had been transferred from Winchester. 
It had originally been ordered to the Tower of London, 
but the Colonel, as on a previous occasion, had used his in- 
fluence at the War Office to get this order countermanded, 
to the great disgust of most of the officers. However, our 
chief rarely condescended to consult the wishes of anyone 
but himself in such matters. 

On my arrival at Aldershot, I was summoned to the 
orderly-room by the Colonel, who told me that I had some- 
what exceeded my leave, to which I merely replied : — 

" Indeed, sir ! " 

The other officers present, amused at this laconic answer, 
burst out laughing, at which the Colonel looked very black 
indeed. His temper, I soon learned, had not improved 
since the battalion had removed to Aldershot, as he found 
things there very far from what he had expected. He was 
not nearly so much his own master as he had been at Win- 
chester ; the constant parades irritated him, and he lived 
in perfect dread of the field-days, as he was constantly being 

246 



Eccentricities of Captain " Rabelais " 

reprimanded by the Brigadier-General in command, for not 
knowing his work. These reprimands he endeavoured to 
pass off on to the majors and captains, telhng them that 
they did not attend sufficiently to their duties ; but every- 
one knew with whom the fault lay. 

Much to the Colonel's annoyance, both Allen and Smith 
had now got their companies. Thanks to the former's 
fidelity to his Folkestone beauty, he succeeded in getting 
rid of him, telling him that it would be simply impossible 
for him to remain in the battalion after making such a 
mesalliance. But he had no excuse for getting rid of Smith, 
and so was obliged to put up with him, though he lost no 
opportunity of showing his dislike ; and it was remarked 
that when offenders from Smith's company were brought 
before him, they were always more severely punished than 
those from other companies. Smith, however, took it all 
very philosophically, observing that, as the Colonel could 
not remain in command for ever, he did not intend to gratify 
him by leaving the battalion. 

Neither could our chief succeed in ridding himself of Robin- 
son, whose eccentricities caused him great annoyance. 
Since the arrival of the battalion at Aldershot, "Rabelais " 
had taken to sitting out of doors on warm days, arrayed in 
a flaming red dressing-gown, with feet and legs quite bare 
save for a pair of slippers, much to the disgust of some ladies, 
who had frequently to pass by his quarters. The matter 
was reported to the Colonel, who exclaimed angrily : — 

" Confound that Robinson ! What can I do with such 
a creature ? He is a disgrace to my battalion ! " 

Nevertheless, he did not dare to interfere with him per- 
sonally, but deputed the adjutant to remonstrate with him. 
" Rabelais," however, received that officer with such a 
volley of oaths that he beat a precipitate retreat. 

Whenever Robinson wrote to me or anyone, he did so on 
note-paper in the corner of which was a picture of the devil 
in bright red, with black wings, seated upon a swing, and the 
same device adorned the envelope. Like Ludwig of Bavaria, 
he would only speak to some people from behind a screen in 

247 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

his sitting-room. His sergeants, his subalterns and even 
the adjutant, he would receive in this way, unless one of them 
happened to come on some important business, when he 
would occasionally condescend to reveal himself. His un- 
fortunate subalterns, if they were not to his liking, positively 
trembled before him, and generally ended, like Beauclerk, 
by sending in their papers. 

One of his subalterns, whom I recollect " Rabelais " treated 
particularly badly, was a very nice fellow named Crawley, 
who had lately joined. Crawley, however, put up with it, 
though when the battalion was ordered to South Africa 
on active service, he exchanged into the Coldstream Guards 
with an officer who was killed in the first engagement. In 
after years, Crawley commanded a battalion of the Cold- 
streams, and died of wounds received in the Boer 
War. 

There was a good deal of society in and around Aldershot, 
and the officers of my battalion were invited out a great 
deal, but our duties soon grew so heavy that we were obliged 
to decline nearly all the invitations we received. Colonel 
Wellesley, the governor of the military prison, and his wife 
used to give very pleasant garden-parties, at which, as we 
had not far to go, we were generally able to be present. 
The Colonel, who was then an old man, was an uncle of the 
Duke of Wellington, and Mrs. Wellesley was a most charming 
woman. They had several daughters, who were very good- 
looking girls, and an only son, Cecil Wellesley, a little boy 
about eleven years old. 

A General Smythe, a retired oflficer of the Artillery, who 
lived with his wife and daughter in a large house at Aldershot, 
with extensive grounds attached to it, also used to give 
garden-parties, which were always well attended. The 
Smythes were very hospitable people, and everything was 
admirably arranged, including the refreshment department, 
of which the champagne-cup was a feature. Their daughter 
was a remarkably fine tennis-player, and could, as a rule, 
beat any officer who opposed her. She played in a short 
skirt reaching just below the knee, and wore a collar and 

248 



A Fire in Barracks 

tie and a man's cap — a costume which suited her very well, 
as she had a good figure and beautifully-shaped legs, but 
was, in those days, considered a rather bold one for a woman 
to adopt. Miss Smythe was not only a fine tennis-player, 
but a most accomplished musician. When quite a young 
girl, she had studied singing and composition at Dresden, 
under the direction of Madame Schumann, who declared 
that she had never had a pupil with so wonderful an ear 
for music, as she could sing the scales without a piano in every 
possible key, without the slightest fault. She was also an 
excellent horsewoman and a very bold one, and Holled- 
Smith, who used often to go for rides with her, told me that 
she would put her horse at jumps that made him even think 
twice before he ventured upon them, although he followed 
the hounds regularly when his duties permitted. Some 
people thought that he and Miss Smythe would make a match 
of it, as they were so much together, but they remained merely 
friends, and Holled- Smith eventually married another lady. 

One night, I was awakened by Cotton, who told me that 
the fire-bugle had sounded. Pulling our great-coats over 
our night-shirts, we ran towards the place where the fire had 
broken out, and found that it was in the stables, which were 
soon almost gutted. Two of Allfrey's hunters were burned 
to death, for though we endeavoured to save the unfortunate 
animals, it was quite impossible. Indeed, we had all our 
work cut out to prevent the fire from spreading to the 
adjacent buildings, but, with the aid of some men with the 
fire-hose, we succeeded in doing this. 

During Ascot week Bagot drove our coach from Aldershot 
to Ascot and back, while I sat on the box-seat and occasion- 
ally took a turn with the ribbons. Bagot was a first-rate 
whip and the best in the battalion, though Allfrey and Cotton 
were by no means to be despised. We lunched at the Green- 
jackets' tent, which was for the members of both Rifle 
regiments, where I entertained my father and Sir George 
Wombwell and his party. Among the party was the Hon. 
Mrs. Crichton, whom I had met at Dover, and I was pleased 

249 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

at seeing again Savile Lumley, afterwards Lord Savile, who 
had been at Eton with me. 

Among the Line regiments stationed at Aldershot was one 
commanded by Lieut. -Colonel Deane, brother-in-law of Lord 
Falmouth, who frequently used to dine at our mess, as a 
guest of our chief. Lord Falmouth owned some of the best 
racehorses in England, and had won both the Derby and 
St. Leger. But he disliked betting, and Colonel Deane told 
us that the only bet he had ever had in his life was one of 
sixpence Avith his housekeeper. He lost, and, in payment 
of the bet, gave her the sixpence set in brilliants for a brooch. 

There were several cavalry regiments at Aldershot, in- 
cluding the 8th Hussars and the 16th and 17th Lancers. 
The 16th Lancers had a circus, composed of officers and men, 
which used to give performances which were highly success- 
ful ; in fact, it was almost as good as a professional circus. 
Taaffe, whom I had met on my way out to India, was with 
the 16th at Aldershot, and we used frequently to dine at one 
another's messes. 

When in town, I constantly met old Eton friends and 
acquaintances, chiefly officers in the Guards. The Hon. 
Alfred Egerton, who was at that time a lieutenant in the 
Grenadier Guards, was a particular friend of mine and I saw^ 
a good deal of him. Egerton told me that his colonel, Prince 
Edward of Saxe-Weimar, had refused to allow his battalion 
to comply with a senseless order during the manoeuvres at 
Aldershot on a day of almost tropical heat. Other com- 
manding officers, however, had not the courage to follow 
his example, with the result that a great number of men 
got sunstroke. In those days, the Aldershot manoeuvres 
took place in the height of summer, instead of, as now, in 
the autumn. Several battalions of the Guards and the 
" Blues " were sent to Aldershot for the manoeuvres, and 
amongst the Eton friends whom I met was Lord Edward 
Somerset, who had exchanged from the 23rd Royal Welsh 
Fusiliers into the " Blues," where he was very popular. 

The day the troops were inspected by the Duke of Cam- 
bridge rain fell in torrents. The troops had to assemble 

250 



A Trying Inspection 

on parade in the early morning in full uniform without over- 
coats, and to wait, standing at ease, for fully two hours in 
the midst of the most drenching rain until the Duke arrived. 
Many men suffered afterv,^ards from the effects of that deluge. 
I was one of them, as shortly afterwards, I was laid up with 
a severe attack of rheumatic fever, which has affected my 
heart ever since. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

Madrid and Cordova — Seville — General von Goeben and the Bullfight 
— A View from, the Alhambra — I rejoin my Regiment 

1 SPENT my winter leave in Paris, where I suffered 
more or less all the time from rheumatism of the heart, 
or which I took a good many Turkish baths, without, how- 
ever, obtaining much relief. My doctor told me that it 
would be unwise to return to Aldershot when my leave 
was up, and advised me to spend the rest of the winter in 
Spain. Accordingly, I went before a medical board in 
London, one of the members of which was Surgeon-Major 
Clarke, of the Royal Horse Artillery, whom I had known 
in India, and was granted three months' sick leave. I re- 
turned to Paris with my father, who had accompanied me 
to London, and Lord Henry Paget (afterwards Marquis of 
Anglesey), and on the following evening left the Gare 
d' Orleans for Madrid. 

After two nights and a day in the train, 1 reached Madrid, 
which, as it was carnival time, was very gay. I took a room 
at the Hotel de Paris, and after breakfast called on Dona 
Quenones de Leon, who lived in a huge house like a palace, 
and who received me in a drawing-room, in the centre of 
which a small fountain was playing. In the evening, I 
visited the Opera, but was not very favourably impressed 
by, the performance. The following day, through the good 
offices of the Marquis de San Carlos, I was able to visit the 
Royal Stables and the Armeria, with which I was quite 
delighted. Afterwards I walked in the Prado, which was 
crowded with carriages, all the occupants of which were 
masked. Some of the carriages were drawn by mules, and 

252 



Madrid and Cordova 

a few by donkeys. In the evening, I dined with the Marquis 
de San Carlos, when I met Dona Queiiones de Leon and two 
daughters of Queen Christina and a daughter of the Marquis. 
The next day I visited the Museum, and then went again 
to the Prado, where I saw the King and princesses in an open 
carriage. The crush was so great that one could hardly 
move. After dinner, I visited Seilora Queiiones de Leon, 
with whom I found the Marquis de San Carlos and his sons, 
and, at their request, played some airs on the zither. 

From Madrid I went to Cordova, where I stayed at the 
Hotel Suiza. Cordova is an interesting town, containing, 
as it does, so much Moorish architecture. Some of the streets 
are so narrow that there is barely room for two people to 
walk abreast, and it is infested by hordes of beggars, mostly 
children in an almost nude condition. The smallness of 
their hands and feet betray their Moorish origin. 

After spending a couple of days at Cordova and visiting the 
Cathedral, with its pillars of porphyry, I took the train for 
Seville, where I put up at the Hotel des Quatre Nations. At 
dinner that evening I sat next to a young man who, I after- 
wards learned, was a son of the President of Brazil. As I 
intended to remain for some time at Seville, I looked out 
for a casa de huespedes (boarding-house), which I found in the 
Plaza Nueva. The Plaza Nueva is the finest square in 
Seville, and contains a great number of orange-trees, which 
at night and early morning throw out the most delicious 
fragrance imaginable. My rooms overlooked the Plaza, and 
at times the perfume of the orange-blossoms, which the 
Spaniards call " azalidr" was so overpowering that one felt 
almost intoxicated. 

The casa de huespedes was kept by three young girls — 
sisters — of the name of De Larriva, who told me that they 
would teach me Spanish. The youngest, who was called 
Manuela, was a very pretty brunette of seventeen, with 
jet-black hair, beautiful white teeth, and those peculiar black 
eyes which are rarely seen except in the South. She it was 
who gave me the most instruction, for, though her two 
sisters spoke French fairly well, while Manuela spoke no 

253 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

language but her own, she was by far the prettiest of the 
trio, and I not unnaturally preferred being taught by her. 
She began by telling me the names of the parts of the face, 
and gradually taught me to pay all kinds of compliments. 
By her advice, I took some lessons, besides, from a pro- 
fessional teacher of the language. 

Life at this casa de huespedes was very pleasant, apart 
from the food, which, to an English palate, was detestable, 
for every dish was prepared with olive- oil, and even the 
poached eggs tasted of it. The butter was imported from 
Holland and the milk condensed. I lived chiefly on oranges, 
for I found nearly everything else unpleasant to the taste. 
We used to sit down twenty-five to dinner, as a number 
of Artillery officers from the garrison Were in the habit 
of dining there. 

Among my fellovz-guests was an Englishman of seventy, 
a Mr. Heaviside, who had come to Seville on purpose to 
learn to read " Don Quixote " in the original old Spanish. 
Manuela used to tease him, by encouraging him to speak 
Spanish, of which he knew very little. I often went with 
him to a cafe of an evening to hear the bandhurria played 
with the piano, and occasionally I went for a walk with the 
sisters De Larriva in the fine gardens of the Pasco, where 
there were many tropical plants growing out in the open 
air, and lemon and orange trees perfumed the atmosphere 
deliciously. 

An officer whom I knew, Surgeon-Major Orton, happened 
to be spending his leave at Seville, and with him I went to 
visit the Museum, with its lovely pictures by Murillo, and the 
Alcazar, with which we were delighted, the walls being 
covered with beautiful designs in the style of the Alhambra. 
I also visited the Giralda, the view from which is very fine, 
the Carridad, where there were many pictures by Murillo 
and exquisite wood-carvings by Rollas, and the cathedral, 
which is one of the largest in the world. 

During the winter the patio, or courtyard, of the houses 
in Seville is but little used, but when spring comes, people 
spend a great part of their time there. When Spaniards 

254 



Seville 

get together they invariably dance with Castanet accom- 
paniments. Sometimes they dance the Seguidillas, the 
Sevillana, or the Fandango, which is very pretty to watch, 
as both men and women dance with so much elan. This 
is very much the custom, even in aristocratic houses, the 
looker-on applauding and exclaiming : " Olle, graziosa, muy 
Men, olle, olU ! " when one of the girls attempts some 
unusual feat. 

One evening I went with some of the people at the board- 
ing-house to the Calle Trajano to see the dancing there. An 
exceedingly pretty little girl, of ten or eleven, though she 
appeared much older, with black hair, dressed like a Spanish 
woman, with a number of curls round the face, danced with 
a man dancer the " torrero y la Malaguena." In which dance 
she displayed all the marvellous art of a premiere danseuset 
dancing on her points and executing the most difficult en- 
trechats, hattements and pas de chat, which would have done 
credit to a dancer double her age. Then, suddenly, she 
darted across the room, with her handkerchief in her hand, 
and before I had time to realize what had happened she had 
thrown the handkerchief into my lap and rushed away 
again. Somewhat embarrassed, I inquired of those sitting 
near me what I was supposed to do, and was told that I was 
expected to put some money into it, and that the little danseuse 
would come and fetch it. After the performance, I spoke 
to the little girl, who told me that her name was Salud, and 
asked me to come and see her. I went the following day, 
when she danced for me and gave me her photograph. After- 
wards, I often went to the Calle Trajano of an evening, where 
I sometimes danced with the Spanish girls, and on one occa- 
sion danced a polka-mazurka with Salud. 

During Holy Week and the "Feria," which followed 
it, Seville was crowded with visitors, and the prices at 
the hotels and casas de huespedes were all increased. 
Among the visitors who came to my boarding-house was 
General von Goeben, who commanded a division of the 
German Army in the Franco-German War of 1870, and 
after v/hom the notorious battleship of Dardanelles fame 

255 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

was named, and the Marquis de Rampa, an immensely wealthy 
Spanish nobleman, and his daughter. I sat next to the 
daughter, who was quite a young girl, at table, and was 
obliged to make what play I could with my Spanish, as she 
spoke no other language. 

The processions which took place day and night during 
Holy Week were very imposing. Images of the Virgin Mary 
figured in all of them. The trains of the dresses, which 
were of immense length and generally of blue or violet velvet, 
must have cost thousands of pounds, as they were most 
exquisitely embroidered with gold and silver lace, diamonds, 
rubies, emeralds and pearls. They were carried by young 
girls. On Palm Sunday, the people who took part in the 
procession were dressed in black, with their faces covered, and 
palm-branches in their hands. On Holy Thursday, I went 
to the Cathedral to see the Archbishop of Seville wash the 
feet of the poor. There was a tremendous crush, and Baron 
von Miinchhausen, a Bavarian nobleman, who was with me, 
had his gold watch stolen. 

The " Feria " was a very pretty sight. All the principal 
families in Seville took part in it, each having a separate 
tent, in which they entertained their friends and sold various 
objects, somewhat after the fashion of our charity bazaars. 
In some of these tents the saleswomen were young girls, gor- 
geously dressed in red and yellow satin embroidered with 
white lace and wearing white lace mantillas. To most 
of the tents you had to receive an invitation before you were 
allowed to enter, when you were offered chocolate or coffee, 
and, in those belonging to rich families, champagne and other 
wines, the buffets being laid out with a great display of 
silver plate and flowers. In the evening, the different families 
visited each other's tents, and the dancing of Fandangos, 
Boleros and Seguidillas was kept up until past midnight. 

The Carrerras de Caballos (Horse Show) was held in 
another part of the grounds. Here I met Lord Torphichen, 
of the Rifle Brigade, who had come from Gibraltar, where 
his battalion was stationed. He was very surprised to 
see me, as few British officers ever visited Seville. 

256 



General von Goeben and the Bull -fight 

One of the chief attractions of the " Feria " was the bull- 
fight, to which all the ladies of Seville went, wearing white 
mantillas and their choicest jewels. I went with Baron 
von Miinchhausen and General von Goeben. But the latter 
took his departure very early, observing that, though he had 
seen a great deal of bloodshed during the Franco-German War, 
he felt quite faint and could not possibly stand any more 
of such a disgusting spectacle. On my return to the board- 
ing-house, Manuela inquired if I had not been delighted with 
the bull-fight, saying that it was the grandest sight in Spain 
and that nothing gave her so much pleasure. I told her 
that I thought it very cruel to the unfortunate horses, when 
she rejoined that ."they were old screws and no longer of 
any use." I remarked that that did not prevent them 
suffering, upon which she said that hunting was equally 
cruel, and that it was a matter of prejudice and nothing 
else. 

" Besides," added she, " racing is cruel on the horses, 
some people say." 

After that I saw that it was useless to pursue the argu- 
ment further. 

During the " Feria," the ladies of Seville dressed in colours, 
but at other times most women and girls wore black. There 
were some very pretty women in Seville, but the beauties 
were generally to be found among the lower classes, most of 
whom have Moorish blood in their veins, which gives them 
a darker complexion, but also smaller features and very 
tiny hands and feet. Theophile Gautier observes that there 
is nothing more charming than the foot of an Andalusian 
woman, which makes even that of a Frenchwoman appear 
large. 

During my stay at Seville, I paid a visit to Cadiz. The 
approach to Cadiz is perfectly lovely and has often been 
compared to the approach to Constantinople. Seen from a 
distance, the town appears to be built of the most exquisitely 
white marble ; while the sea, which seems to surround it, is 
of a beautiful sapphire, which rivals in loveliness the heavens 
above, though, as it was eajly morning, the colour Of the sky 

257 17 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

was more like that of the turquoise. This illusion is destroyed, 
however, when one enters Cadiz, as many of the houses are 
very far from being of the snowy whiteness which distance 
had lent to them. 

At Cadiz, where I put up at the Hotel des Quatre Nations, 
I came across a Mr. Rueff, whom I had met at Cordova, 
and in his company explored the town and visited several 
of the churches, where Mr. Rueff was much interested in the 
Avood- carving, some of which was of exquisite workmanship. 
The day before returning to Seville, I went with Mr. Rueff 
by rail to Jerez, where we visited the wine cellars of Senor 
Misa, who supplied my own and most of the best regiments 
in England with wine. Senor Misa invited us to taste some 
of his best wines, including one which was bottled in the 
year of the Battle of Waterloo. He told us that it was 
sold at £3 the bottle, but it never left the country. 

Mr. Rueff accompanied me back to Seville, and together 
we visited the Fondacion, where the cannons are made, 
and the Casa de Pilatus, the supposed house of Pontius Pilate. 
A few days later, I paid a visit to Granada, where the red 
hills and grey rocks and the elm trees with their massive 
foliage formed an agreeable contrast to the flat and barren 
country around Seville. On entering the Alhambra, I was 
fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of two English 
ladies, one of whom was married to a Portuguese nobleman 
and lived in the Alhambra. These ladies very kindly 
volunteered to show me all over the Alhambra and explain 
everything to me, an offer which I gladly accepted. The 
Alhambra reminded me to some extent of the Alcazar at 
Seville, as it is built in the same style of Moorish architecture, 
though on a much larger and grander scale. The Court of 
Lions and the adjacent rooms are exquisitely constructed, and 
the marvellous decoration of the walls, with their blending 
of colours and intricate designs, impart a magnificence to 
the ^'tout ensemble " almost impossible to describe. 

One of the most exquisite views I can remember, I had 
when the sun was setting from one of the windows of the 
Alhambra. f^om which I could see the mountains of the 

258 



A View from the Alhambra 

Sietra Nevada, with their summits covered in snow. The 
colours which the sun's declining rays imparted to the clouds 
were of all the various shades of the opal, making some 
of the tiny clouds appear like roses in the heavens, and the 
heavens themselves as though on fire. Then gradually the 
colours became more subdued, and every shade melted away, 
from the deepest red to the most delicate violet, leaving here 
and there a bunch of roses, which resembled in their pale 
nuance the Souvenir a la Malmaison or Blanche Laffitte. 
This was the effect of the after-glow. 

The next day, the two ladies took me to see the Cartuja 
and the Cathedral, and on the following afternoon I went 
with them for a drive into the country, during which I had 
a splendid view of the Sierra Nevada. After dinner, I went 
again to the Alhambra to take leave of my kind friends, and 
heard the nightingales sing as I had never heard before or 
since in my life. 

Early next morning I left Granada for Seville. At a 
lonely spot beyond Antequeria the train came to a stop, owing 
to the line being blocked by a* broken-down engine, and we 
were told that it might be some time before we should be 
able to proceed. Many of the passengers appeared greatly 
alarmed, and, on inquiring the reason, I was informed that 
this part of the country was infested by brigands, who might 
at any moment come down upon us. However, we saw noth- 
ing of these gentry, and at the end of a couple of hours the 
engine which barred our way was got off the rails, and we 
continued our journey. 

Towards the end of April, the weather became intolerably 
hot at Seville, and I reluctantly decided to bring my stay 
there to a close. I accordingly bade farewell to Manuela 
and my other friends at the casa de huespedes and took the 
train for Madrid, where I again put up at the H6tel de Paris. 
I stayed for some days at Madrid, visited two or three of the 
principal theatres and dined with Dofia Quefiones de Leon, 
the Marquis de San Carlos, and other people whom I knew. 
I also went several times to the Museum, where I made the 
acquaintance of a Senorita Helene de Espaiia, a wonderfully 

259 17* 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

pretty girl of seventeen, who was engaged in copying a 
painting by Van Dyck. This Senorita H^l^ne de Espana 
was a blonde with blue eyes and fair hair, a type of beauty 
not often met with in Spain, but it appeared that she was of 
English descent on her mother's side, though she could not 
speak English. She seemed to be a young lady of a rather 
romantic temperament, for, after a very short acquaintance, 
she told me that I might serenade her by night beneath her 
window. But I did not avail myself of this permission, 
which I often regretted since not having done. 

Before leaving Madrid, I spent a day at Toledo, where, 
under the wing of a guide, I visited the Cathedral of San Juan 
de los Reyes, the Jewish synagogue, and the royal manu- 
factory of steel weapons. This manufactory is one of the 
best in Europe, and the way in which the upper part of the 
blades of the swords and daggers made here is inlaid in gold 
and silver gives them a very costly as well as a very charming 
appearance. Some of the weapons were for sale, and I 
purchased a very fine dagger, beautifully inlaid with gold 
arabesque designs. These daggers are of so fine a steel 
that they will easily pierce a silver coin without breaking. 
Toledo is one of the oldest towns in Spain, and the last place 
in which the Jews were allowed to reside before they were 
banished from Spain. This accounts for its inhabitants 
having a Jewish cast of countenance. 

I arrived in Paris on my birthday, May 5th. The Exhibi- 
tion had now begun, and I visited it on several occasions with 
my father and other friends. I was much interested in the 
prize zithers sent by Anton Kiendl of Vienna, which were 
truly beautiful instruments, and very delighted with the 
playing of a Hungarian gipsy band in the Austro -Hungarian 
section of the Exhibition. At the Grand Opera I heard 
VAjricaine for the second time, and also went to the Theatre 
de la Renaissance to see le Petit Due, in which Mile. Granier 
and Emil Meyer sang, and to the "Fran§ais," where I saw 
Got, Coquelin and Miles. Reichemberg, Agar and Croizette 
in les Fourehambault. I attended a race-meeting at Long- 
champs with my father, where we met the Hon. Albert Bing- 

260 



I rejoin My Regiment 

ham and Howard Vyse, who returned with us to Paris, and in 
the evening we went to Musard's Concert, at which the Prince 
of Wales was present. Altogether, I had a very pleasant 
time, but my three months' sick leave was now on the point 
of expiring, and I was obliged to return to England to rejoin 
my regiment. 



261 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

I meet Byron Again — I endeavour to Exchange — Basil Montgomery 
— My Illness — ^Why I was not Placed on Half-pay 

MY Colonel appeared anything but pleased at my return. 
He had, it seems, been hopeful that my application 
for sick leave was but a preliminary step to my resigning my 
commission, when he had intended to replace me by a friend 
of his from the 4th Battalion ; and was, therefore, naturally 
disappointed at my reappearance upon the scene. 

A propos of colonels and the way in which they treated 
officers to whom they happened to have taken a dislike, 
there was, just about this time, a great scandal in another 
battalion of my regiment. 

Among the subalterns of this battalion was a certain 
Lieutenant Gilbert, who was very popular with his brother- 
officers ; but his Colonel, who was a terrible martinet, 
persecuted him to a shameful degree and lost no opportunity 
of making his life a burden to him. One day, during a parade 
in which this officer was right guide of his company, the 
Colonel bullied him in a way which disgusted everyone. 
Suddenly, after being sworn at in the most disgraceful manner, 
the poor young fellow, his powers of self-control exhausted, 
threw down his sword. The Colonel at once ordered the 
Adjutant to place him under arrest, and he was subsequently 
tried by court-martial, found guilty of insubordination on 
parade and cashiered. At the same time, the Colonel was 
told that he must retire from the Service at once. It was 
said that, had Gilbert not thrown down his sword, matters 
would have turned out very differently, for the Colonel 
had behaved so outrageously that he would have been 

262 



I meet Byron Again 

cashiered himself, that is to say, if anyone had had the courage 
to bring his conduct to the notice of his superiors ; and, as 
the battalion was on the point of mutiny, this would probably 
have been done. 

The 2nd Battalion, 10th Regiment, to the command of 
which my friend Byron had recently succeeded, had just 
arrived at Aldershot, and I was naturally delighted to see 
him again. He invited me to dine at the lOth's mess, where 
I spent a most pleasant evening. During dinner, Byron 
said : — 

" You were very foolish to leave us. If you had stayed, 
as you may remember I advised you to do, you would have 
had me for your CO., and would have had a very easy time of 
it, and have been able to do as you pleased." 

He added that, in his opinion, there was no comparison 
between the two Rifle regiments, so far as the social position 
of officers serving in them was concerned, and that, from 
what he had heard, as his brother was a major in my regi- 
ment, but in a different battalion (He later commanded the 
2nd Battalion), I was not only in the inferior reginjent, but in 
its worst battalion, commanded by a chief about whom 
few people seemed to have a good word to say. 

All this was only too true, and I could only reply that, 
had I been able to see a little into the future, I would certainly 
have remained with the 10th Regiment. It was unfortunate, 
too, my not being able to remain with the 2nd Battalion of 
the Rifles in India, as I liked them all very much. 

In May, the German Crown Prince, who was on a visit 
to England, came down to Aldershot to inspect the troops. 
We could well have dispensed with the honour he did us, 
as it was a pouring wet day and bitterly cold, and by the 
time we got back to camp we were drenched to the skin. 
This experience, as may be supposed, did not do me any good, 
although I felt no ill effects at the time. 

I was in town a good deal during the season, and went 
several times to the Opera, where I heard Patti in II Barhiere 
de Seviglia, Don Giovanni, Aida and Semiramide, Albani 
in Atala, the Spanish tenor Gayarre in Lucrezia Borgia and 

263 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

Jean de Reszke in les Huguenots. Early in July, my father 
came over to England, and I went with him to the Eton 
and Harrow match at Lord's, where we lunched on Tom 
Hohler's drag. Jim Doyne was in town, and I saw a good 
deal of him, and we often lunched and dined together. In 
fact, on my visits to London I generally contrived to have a 
very good time ; but at Aldershot things were not so pleasant, 
and matters came to a head on the day my battalion was 
inspected by Brigadier-General Anderson. 

The inspection passed off pretty satisfactorily. Each 
officer in succession was called up by the Brigadier and told 
to put his men through certain movements. The Brigadier 
found fault with two of the officers, and complained about 
them to the Colonel, who, however, assured him that on 
ordinary occasions their work was quite satisfactory. I 
was now in command of Allen's company, and when my 
turn came, I had no difficulty in performing all the requisite 
movements, and was complimented by the Brigadier, who 
then turned to the Colonel and remarked : — 

" I can find no fault with this officer ; he knows his work 
better than some of the others." 

" I don't know how it is, Sir," replied the Chief, with 
difficulty concealing his annoyance, " but to-day he seems 
smarter than usual." 

The Colonel, it appeared, had made a very bad report on 
me to the General, which would have been sent to the War 
Office if the latter had confo-med it ; but this the Brigadier 
told him he was quite unable to do. The Colonel then said 
that it was in looking after my company that I was deficient, 
to which his superior replied that he would see into the matter 
and send for us both in a day or two. 

I had written to General Sir John Douglas, K.C.B., who 
commanded the Forces in Scotland, and had married a 
daughter of Earl Cathcart, complaining of my Chief's treat- 
ment of me ; and Sir John had written to Brigadier-General 
Anderson about me. It was owing to this that the latter 
watched me so carefully, in order to see if I were really so 
ignorant of my work as my Chief had represented, and, 

264 



I endeavour to Exchange 

having satisfied himself to the contrary, he had decided to 
investigate my case further. 

However, the Colonel, having got rid of Beauclerk and 
Allen, had now made up his mind to get rid of me also. 
Accordingly, he sent Major Northey to advise me to exchange 
into another battalion, as he was determined that I should 
not remain in his. The Major said that it was no good my 
trying to resist so obstinate a man as the Chief, and named 
an officer whom the Colonel was anxious to have in his 
battalion, who would probably be willing to exchange with 
me. 

" You know what he is when he has once taken a dislike 
to anyone," he added. " Remember Beauclerk's case. 
If you will take my advice, you will communicate with the 
officer I have mentioned at once." 

I said that I would do as Major Northey advised, and 
wrote to the officer in question, who replied that, as he was 
short of money, he would only exchange in consideration of 
my paying him the sum of £300. He pointed out that his 
battalion was remaining in England, while mine would 
shortly be going on foreign service, and perhaps even on 
active service. 

I may mention that some time before this I had been told 
by my cousin, Emily Cathcart, that I had a very good chance 
of being chosen as private secretary to the Duke of Argyll, 
who was then Governor of Canada ; but eventually a relative 
of his was offered the post. 

• The Colonel, in the belief that I was about to exchange, 
now became quite amiable towards me. At times he would 
send Wilkinson, the Adjutant, to ascertain how matters were 
progressing, and I was not a little amused by the way in 
which Wilkinson, who did not wish me to suspect the object 
of his visit, would lead up to the subject. 

The eccentricities of our Chief at this time caused the whole 
battalion great annoyance. It was an unusually hot summer, 
and he used to inspect us of a morning wearing mufti and 
holding a huge white umbrella over his head, a precaution 
which he explained by saying that he had had a touch of 

265 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

sun whilst serving in India. If this were really the case, it 
probably accounted for his constant outbursts of temper. 
At these inspections, he was accustomed to display the most 
exasperating solicitude about the men's uniform, inspecting 
each man separately, and fingering every button to ascer- 
tain whether it were loose or not. This sort of thing, which 
could, of course, have been very well undertaken by the 
company commanders in barracks, instead of by the CO. 
on parade, under a broiling sun, used sometimes to occupy 
hours, and was naturally very trying indeed to everyone. 

One morning, towards the end of July, I was playing at 
single-stick with Holled-Smith, when I received rather a 
severe hit on the side, which made me feel so ill that I went 
to bed and sent for our surgeon, who told me that my liver, 
from which I had suffered so much in India, was affected. He 
made me remain in bed for several days, at the end of which I 
was well enough to return to duty. 

A day or two later, I was told by the Adjutant that I had 
to go with him to Brigadier-General Anderson, and that the 
Colonel would be there. The General asked me several 
questions on military matters, all of which I answered 
correctly, and then requested the Colonel to tell him in what 
he found fault with me. 

" I find that he does not pay sufficient attention to his 
duty," answered my Chief. 

" But," observed the General, " you said first of all that he 
does not know his work, which I find not to be the case. Now 
you say that he does not pay sufficient attention to his duty ; 
but I have inspected his company, and I do not find it in 
any way less well looked after than the other companies 
in your battalion. I really cannot agree with you in your 
opinion, and must make notes upon the report you have 
forwarded to me." 

The General then dismissed us, and I returned to my 
quarters, very relieved at the result of the interview. 

The other officers were naturally very anxious to know 
what had happened, and, when I told them, all advised 
me to remain in the battalion, and not to exchange, 

266 



Basil Montgomery 

saying that the Chief had shown himself to be in the wrong, 
and that the General, who was a first-rate officer, must have 
seen at once that it was nothing but spite on his part, for 
which he would no doubt severely reprimand him. Captain 
de Robeck, whose advice was nearly always worth following, 
said to me : — 

" If you exchange, it will cost you £300, and I don't 
think it is worth it. I should brave it out, were I in your 
place." 

The other officers told me the same, and declared that it 
would show great weakness on my part if I left the battalion. 

As events turned out, I had no option in the matter, since 
my father, to whom I had written asking for the £300 I 
required to purchase my exchange, could not see his way 
just then to let me have the money, as he had been so robbed 
by a lawyer, a trustee. And so I had to " brave it out," 
bon gre, mat gre, and to derive what consolation I might from 
the reflection that, after what had happened, I should probably 
have an easier time of it, and should no longer have to endure 
all the extra parades which the Chief had been in the habit 
of inflicting upon me. 

Vain illusion ! So far from being allowed a rest, I found 
that I had, if possible, more to do than ever, the Adjutant 
having apparently received orders from the Chief to give me 
all the extra work he could possibly find for me to do. And, 
even without these extra parades, the work in the hottest 
weeks of an exceptionally hot summer would have been quite 
heavy enough. Thorne, an old Etonian, an excellent young 
man, one of the nicest lieutenants in the regiment, advised 
me to ask for a Court of Inquiry, which he felt sure the 
General would approve of, and would very likely ask for 
himself, without my applying for one. 

One night, Basil Montgomery, who had been in the 2nd 
Battalion with me in India, dined at our mess. He told me 
that he was on the point of going out to India again, as private 
secretary to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, 
who was Governor of Madras. He added that he disliked 
India, and would prefer to be a crossing-sweeper in England 

267 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

than a prince out there, but that he was obliged to accept the 
post that had been offered him. However, he only remained 
about six months in India, as he did not hit it off with the 
Duke, who was a very difficult person indeed to get on with. 

Towards the end of the season (through my cousin, Miss 
Anne Cathcart), I was asked by Herr Schultz, from whom the 
Princess of Wales was then taking lessons on the zither, to 
play at a concert which was to be given shortly at Marl- 
borough House. I willingly consented and went up to 
town several times to practise for the concert, which, un- 
happily, I was to be prevented from taking part in. 

For some time I had again been suffering from rheumatism, 
which affected my heart. I consulted Sir William Jenner, 
who warned me not to exert myself too much. But this 
advice I was unable to follow, as though the regimental 
surgeon made an application to the Chief for me to be excused 
some of the parades, it was at once refused. 

One intensely hot day, we were kept on parade for a long 
while with nothing but our forage-caps to protect us from the 
scorching sun. Suddenly, I experienced the most excruciating 
pains in the head, and felt as if everything about me was turn- 
ing round. This giddiness soon passed, but on coming off 
parade I felt very unwell. However, as I was orderly officer 
of the day, I performed everything that was required of me. 

That evening at mess, where I was acting as vice-president, 
I suddenly turned to the officer on my left, one of the senior 
lieutenants, Thorne, and said : — 

" I have lost the use of my right hand and foot ! " 

Thorne poured me out some brandy and told me to drink 
it off, but on trying afterwards to rise from my seat, I fell 
down. Thorne and another officer assisted me to my quar- 
ters, where, remembering that I had to turn out the guard, I 
tried to buckle on my sword, only to fall again. They then 
put me to bed, and sent for Surgeon Comerford, who at once 
declared that I was suffering from sunstroke. My father was 
telegraphed for, and, on his arrival, asked Surgeon-Major 
McCormack to visit me. The latter took so serious a view of 
the case, saying that I had but a few hours to live, that my 

268 



* My Illness 

father lost no time in calling in a London specialist, who said 
that my heart was in a bad way and that I must have had a 
sunstroke on parade. When I grew a little better, my father 
wished to take me to Paris, but the London doctor advised 
my not being moved for several weeks. 

The Colonel, who was perhaps experiencing some twinges 
of remorse for the manner in which he had treated me, came 
to visit me and was very kind, sending me fruit and game. 
He had, however, previously dispatched Gunning to ascertain 
if I intended to resign my commission, as, in the event of my 
being placed on half-pay, the Colonel said the battalion might 
have a year or two to wait for my place to be filled up, and 
we were very short of officers. Besides this. Gunning was 
anxious himself to obtain my step in promotion, though he 
did not say so on this occasion. 

I had several visitors while I was confined to my quarters, 
apart from my brother-officers. One day, Mrs. William Adair 
and her daughter came to see me, and were very surprised 
at finding me so ill, as only a few days before I had walked 
over from Aldershot to spend the day at their house at White- 
ways End, a distance of six miles. Mrs. Adair, who was a 
grand-daughter of the Duke of Roxburghe, was considered 
one of the most beautiful women in England. Her daughter, 
who was then sixteen, was also extremely pretty, though of 
a very different type of beauty from her mother, being very 
fair. Mrs. Wellesley sent her little son " Cissy " to cheer me 
up several times, in which task he was very successfuf, as he 
was always most pleasant company. 

It was some weeks before I was able to leave Aldershot, 
as I had almost entirely lost the use of my right arm and leg. 
The Colonel wanted me to be examined there by a Medical 
Board, consisting of Surgeon-Major McCormack and Surgeon 
Comerford, and, though several officers in my regiment 
advised me to have the Board held in London, he got his way 
in the matter. No one was supposed to know the result of 
the Board until it had been approved of by the War Office. 

So soon as I was well enough to stand the journey, I went 
up to London, accompanied by my father and my soldier- 

269 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

servant, Spearing. On the advice of Dr. Russell-Reynolds, 
my father took me to Paris to consult Professor Charcot and 
Dr. Brown-S6quard, Vv^ho at first held out some hopes of 
my recovery. The War Office had granted me three months' 
leave, and, when it expired, as I had not recovered the use of 
my limbs, they refused to place me on halfTpay, and on 
the 1st of January 1879, 1 was obliged to resign my commis- 
sion. The reason they gave was that the Medical Board at 
Aldershot had stated that my illness was not caused in and by 
the Service. 

The Earl of Berkeley, who wrote my letter of resignation 
from Paris for me, as I was unable to do so myself, said in 
this : — 

" In conformity with the instructions I received from the 
War Office, I have forwarded my resignation to the officer in 
command of my battalion. I had ventured to hope that a 
certificate I forwarded to the Colonel of the regiment from one 
of the most eminent consulting physicians in Paris, stating 
that my illness was the result of sunstroke, might have pleaded 
my cause with H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief. I have 
another certificate which I have not under the circumstances 
taken the liberty of forwarding to you, but I would gladly do 
so, if I thought my case might be pleaded with H.R.H." 

A further letter, also written for me by Lord Berkeley, 
was sent to my Colonel : — 

" Although I have the opinion of the most eminent physicians 
that my unfortunate illness was the result of sunstroke sustained 
when on duty, I yield to the decision of the Field-Marshal 
Commander-in-Chief, and hereby tender my resignation of 
H.M. Service.'' 

General Sir John Douglas, then commanding the Forces 
in Scotland, wrote to me : 

" I have Jound out, through General Taylor {79th High- 
landers), at the War Office, that it is through your Colonel's 
influence that they have refused to place you on half -pay, and 
it is quite impossible to overcome this influence.'' 

270 



Why I was not Placed on Half-pay 

A year or two afterwards, I happened to meet Surgeon 
Comerford in London, when I reproached him for not men- 
tioning my sunstroke at the Medical Board at Aldershot. 
He assured me that he was prepared to swear on the Bible 
that he had done so, adding that my Colonel could not have 
forwarded his report correctly to the War Office, or else I 
should have been placed on half -pay. He had fully expected 
that I should have been, and was surprised that such was not 
the case. 

I may here mention that there were only two medical 
officers on the Board : Surgeon-Major McCormack and 
Surgeon Comerford. The former had only seen me once 
before in his life, so I presume the report must have been 
written by Surgeon Comerford ; but, as I have never seen the 
report, I cannot be quite certain. 

Captain Howard Vyse, late of the " Blues," said to me in 
Paris, when I showed him a letter which I had received from 
the War Office :— 

" Thank God ! such a thing could not happen with the 
Household troops. The officers would not allow it either. 
To lose one's health in the Service, and then to receive no 
compensation whatever ! I never heard of such a case ; 
it is simply disgraceful ! " 

In recent years — in 1909 — several officers who had served 
with me, including my Colonel, the late General Sir W. 
Leigh-Pemberton, forwarded letters to the War Office, stating 
that they remembered my sunstroke at Aldershot as being 
the cause of my paralysis,* and I forwarded medical certi- 
ficates to prove that my paralysis was the result of sunstroke 
while on duty there. The reply received by General Sir H. 
Geary, K.C.B., was that the Army Council had made an 
inquiry, and that " no evidence can be traced to show that 
he sustained a sunstroke while on duty at Aldershot in 
August, 1878. In any case, it would seem practically im- 

* The names of these officers were : The late Lieut.-General Sir W. Leigh- 
Pemberton, K.C.B. ; Major-General Sir Charles HoUed-Smith, K.C.M.G. ; 
Colonel Ernest Hovell Thm-low ; Major C. H. B. Thorne, J.P. ; Lieut. 
Horace Neville ; Colonel Alfred Clarke, M.D., and Major C. de Rebeck. 

271 



Memories of an Old Etonian, 1860-1912 

possible to prove that his present disabihty was the outcome 
of illness contracted in and by the Service more than thirty 
years ago. Not only the absence of confirmatory records, 
but the whole procedure at the time is out of keeping with 
the theory that his resignation was due to illness caused 
by military duty." 

Sir William Gull, under whose treatment I was for some 
years, in the early eighties, told me that my paralysis was 
caused by embolism, owing to the sunstroke at Aldershot in 
1878, adding that he had a very bad opinion of Army doctors 
in general, who were constantly making dreadful mistakes, 
and indeed, were no better than the doctors mentioned by 
Lesage in Gil Bias. 

In 1918, Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell, who was formerly 
in the 1st Battalion of my old regiment, had great hopes of 
obtaining a pension or retired pay for me from the War 
Office, but so far his most kind efforts on my behalf have 
been fruitless. It would appear that philosophy is not at 
all studied at the War Office, for they persist in maintaining 
that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be, 
which is contrary to the ideas of the most abstruse philoso- 
phers. With regard to the Ministry of Pensions (whose 
Secretary is Sir Matthew Nathan), above its portals ought 
to be written "Lasciate ogni Speranza." It is to be hoped 
that with Mr. Winston Churchill, the author of " Savrola," 
as Secretary of State for War, some ideas of justice may be 
imparted to both of them. I hope so, not only for my own 
sake, but for that of the whole Army. 



THE END 



INDEX 



Aberdour, Lord, 108. 
Adair, Mrs. William, 269. 
Adelaide, Queen, 5 {note). 
Adelsdorfer, Baroness, 146. 
Adelsdorfer, Madame, 244. 
Airey, Lord, 222. 
Albani, 116, 244, 263. 
Aldershot, 246. 
Alfrey, Lieutenant, 223. 
Algar, Major, 191. 
Alhambra, The, Granada, 258. 
Alexander, C. R., 66, 81. 
Alison, General Sir A., 181. 
Allen, Lieutenant, 223, 234, 247. 
Anderson, Brigadier-General, 264 

266. 
Andra, Professor Dr., 124, 128. 
Andrews, Mrs., 218. 
Anglesey, Marquis of, 148. 
Annesley, Lieutenant-Colonel, 176 
Armytage, Lieutenant, 205, 207. 
Arnold, Dr., 242. 
Arthy, Captain, 34. 
Ashburnham, Major, 191. 
Astor, Lord, 90. 
Auerbach, Berthold, 129. 
Aylmer, Percy, 93. 

Babington, Sub -Lieutenant, 183. 
Bagot, Colonel Sir Joseeline, lOlj 
Bagot, Adjutant A. G., 227, 247. 
Baird, George, 93. 



Baldock, Colonel, 82. 
Balfour, Charles, 81. 
Balfour, Miss Hilda, 81. 
Baring, Viscount, 182, 242. 
Barnard, Lord, 98. 
Batehelor,Veterinary-Surgeon, 205, 

208, 213. 
Bean, Capt. and Mrs., 133. 
Beauclerk, Lieutenant, 186. 
Beauclerk, Miss, 143. 
Beaumont, Sub-Lieutenant, 206. 
Beck, Lieutenant, 236. 
Belgrave, Viscount, 76. 
BelVs Life substitute for Bible, 47. 
Bennett, Viscount, 235. 
Bentheim, The Princes, 127. 
Benyon, Captain, 206. 
Berkeley, Earl of, 165. 
Berkeley, Lord, 245. 
Berkeley, Captain Lennox, 57, 59, 

112, 113, 147, 157. 
Bernhardt, Sarah, 229. 
Bernstorff, Count, 126. 
Bethell, Lieutenant, 169. 
Bingham, Hon. Albert, 161, 260, 
Binz, Professor Dr., 123. 
Black Forest Adventures, 22. 
Blane, M., 9. 

Blewitt, Major, 176. "** 

Blocqueville, Marquise de, 158. 
Blount, Edward, 110. 
Bois-Hebert, Marquis de, 161, 164i 

273 i8 



Index 



Boland, Major, 110. 

Bonn, 123. 

Boulogne, 37. 

Bozzo, Mademoiselle Cheechi, 245. 

Bromley, Capt., 33. 

Brown-Sequard, Dr., 270. 

Browning, Oscar, 74. 

Brownrigg, Capt., 242. 

Burgh, Capt. Hubert de, 161. 

Byron, Capt. John, 172, 179, 263. 

Cambridge, Duke of, 250. 
Campden, Viscount, 215. 
Campobello, Signer, 156. 
Candle, The diminishing, 209. 
Cantelupe, Lord, 143. 
Caracciolo, Duchesse de, 143. 
Card playing, 176. 
Carpenter, Captain, 225. 
Cartwright, General, 180. 
Cathcart, Lady Georgina, 83. 
Cathcart, Hon. Emily, 83, 84, 265. 
Cavendish-Bentinck, Arthur, 93. 
Cercle des Patineurs, 57. 
Chantilly, 163. 
Charcot, Professor, 270. 
Charleville, Lord, 51. 
Charltons, The, 173, 179, 286. 
Chatham Barracks, 175. 
Childe-Pemberton, Lieutenant, 241. 
" Christopher Inn," 86. 
Christy Minstrels at Chatham, 227. 
Churchill, Lady, 85. 
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 46. 
Clanmorris, Lord, 161. 
Clarke, Sydenham, 191, 212. 
Clarke, Surgeon-Major, 250. 
Cockshott, Mr., 73. 
CoHins, Major, 225. 
Combermere, Viscount, 235. 
Comerford, Surgeon, 268. 
Cotton, Lieutenant C. S., 222, 234, 

249. 
Cramer, Captain, 223. 
Craven, Fulwar J. C, 68, 82, 03. 
Crawford, Colonel, 148. 



Crighton, Hon. Mrs., 249. 
Crofton, Lieutenant, 235. 
Crompion, Captain, 214, 215. 
Czartoryski, Princess, 140. 
Czerwinska, Countess, 137. 

d'Abbantes, Duchesse, 157. 
Dalton, Rev. W., 73. 
Dannecker's statue, 14. 
Daram, Mademoiselle, 152. 
Darwin's theory disproved, 131. 
d'Assailly, Vicomte Arthur, 146, 

213, 246. 
d' Attain ville, M. de Lasquier, 137. 
D'Aubigny, Comte, 37, 
Daudet, Alphonse, 245. 
d'Aumale, Due, 163. 
Deane, Lieutenant-Colonel, 250. 
de Houghton, 178. 
Delaunay, 182. 
Delbriick, Hans, 135. 
Desart, Countess of, 6. 
Desclee, Aimee, 179, 
Dickenson, Lieutenant Fienncs, 

192. 
Dillon, Lord, 116. 
Dillon, Sub-Lieutenant A., 173, 179, 

181, 225. 
Disraeli, 55. 
Dorrien, Captain Frederick, 4, 27, 

113. 
Douglas, General Sir John, 31, 264. 
Douglas, Captain Niel, 86, 264. 
Douglas, Charles, 88. 
Doyne, Lady Frances, 105. 
Doyne, James, 66, 74, 77, 79, 80, 

81, 88, 93, 101, 103, 109, 136, 

238, 241. 
Doyne, Mrs., 104. 
Doyne, Mr. Mervyn, 105. 
Drexel Brothers, 17. 
" Dry bobs," 88. 
Duff, Folliot, 150. 
Dunn, Captain, 169. 
Durnford, Rev., 73. 
Dusanty, 147. 



274 



Index 



Earning a living, 233. 
Edwards-Moss, 100. 
Egerton, Hon. Alfred, 250. 
Elinn, Fraulein, 231. 
Elwes, Captain, 37. 
ErroU, Countess of, 84. 
Eschenheimer Thor, The, 13. 
Eton, Happy days at, 65 et seq. 
Etonian cachet, 63. 
Eugene, 199, 208. 

Falmouth, Lord, 250. 
Faverney, Comtesse de, 157. 
Featherstone, Lieutenant, 239. 
Ferriferes, Chateau de, 162. 
Finch, Hon. Charles, 83. 
Finch-Hatton, Rev. William, 47. 
Finch-Hatton, Greville, 42, 48. 
Finis, Miss, 225. 
Fire burning for two hundred years. 

98. 
Firing the eighty- ton gun, 239. 
FitzWilliam, Earl, 106. 
FitzWiUiam, Charles, 107. 
FitzWiUiam, Hon. John, 77. 
FitzWilUam, Hon. Thomas, 107. 
Foley, Lieutenant, 236. 
Football " colours," 88. 
Four millionaires, 16. 
Francisco-Martin, M. de, 151. 
Franco-German War, 110. 
Frankfurt-on-the-Main, 1, 12. 
Frederick, Lady, 241. 
French girls and English girls, 140, 

Gambetta, 166. 
Gayarr6, 263. 

Geary, General Sir H., 271 
German Crown Prince, 263. 
German girls, 133. 
Gilbert, Lieutenant, 262. 
Girard, Juliette, 246. 
Glen, Archibald, 178. 
Godfrey, Dan, 240. 
Goeben, General von, 255. 
Goethe, 15. 



Goldschmid, 10, 15. 

Goldsmid, Mrs., 148. 

Goltz, von der, 132. 

Gordon, Miss, 112. 

Graeme, Colonel, 236. 

Grammont, Duchesse de, 143. 

Grandmaison, Marquis de, 160. 

Grant, General, 166. 

Graves, Hon. Mrs., 143. 

Greenock, Viscount, 42. 

Grenfell, Lord, 272. 

Greuze's paintings, 60. 

Gridley, Harry, 80, 87. 

Gridley, Reginald, 93. 

Griebel, Herr, 92. 

Grosvenor, Earl, 76, 

Guilbert, Marquise Brian de Bois, 

156, 157. 
Gull, Sir WiUiam, 272. 
Gunning, Sub-Lieutenant Robert, 

223, 237. 

Hale, Mr., 73. 
Harris, Lord, 82. 
Hart, Lieutenant, 205. 
Hartopp, Sir Charles E. C, 117. 
Havre, Baron van, 165. 
Hawtrey, Mr. Stephen, 73. 
Headley, Lord, 117. 
Healy, Mrs., 116. 
Heaviside, Mr., 254. 
Helene de Espaiia, Senorita, 259. 
Henley Regatta, 94. 
Herbert, Hon. Sidney, 82. 
Hobart, Captain, 205. 
Hochberg, Dr. Ritter von, 218. 
Hodgson, Charles Rice, 77. 
Hohler, Tom, 38, 245. 
HoUed-Smith, Lieutenant, 223. 
Homburg, 4. 

Home-Purves, Colonel, 49. 
Hope, Lieutenant, 210. 
Hope-Johnstone, Lieutenant P 

283. 
Hornby, Dr., 87, 100. 
Horrocks, Capt., 126. 



Index 



Horrocks, Miss Edith, 134. 
Houghton, de, 178. 
Howard, Lieut. F,, 241. 
Hozier, J. H. C, 99. 
Hudson, Major, 177. 
Hudson, Mrs., 11. 
Hungerford, Mrs., 244. 
Hunter, Captain, 236. 
Hunter's, Mr., school, 42 et seq. 
Hutchinson, Sir Edward, 7. 
Hutchinson, General Coote, 7. 

Ind, Mrs., 29. 
Innes-Ker, Lord Mark, 86. 
Isabella, ex-Queen of Spain, 244. 
Isabelle, 141. 

James, Rev. C. C, 63. 
Jenner, Sir William, 269. 
Joynes, Rev., 73. 

Kennedy, Lord Alexander, 84. 

Keogh, Mrs., 244. 

Kernave, Madame Alice, 164. 

Killarney, 104. 

Kilmaine, Vicomte Frederic de, 

136. 
Kineton School, 28, 42. 
King (Leopold) of Belgians, 32. 
King William I. of Prussia, 1, 

3, 7. 
Kinglake, William, 88. 
Kinglake, Sophia, 112. 
Kinloch, Captain A., 187-8. 
Kinloch, Mrs., 187, 205. 
Kirchhofer's, Herr, School, 18. 
Kisilieff, Madame, 11. 
Klenck, Freiherr von, 218. 
Knightley, Rev. Henry, 50. 
Knox, Lieutenant-Colonel, 170. 
Krauss, Madame, 245. 

Labitzky, Augusts, 219. 
Labouchere, Henry, 30. 
Lamoury (violinist), 110. 
Lane, General Ronald, 159. 



Lasalle, Ferdinand, and German 
women, 63. 

Laval, Mademoiselle de, 141. 

Lavalle, Eugifenie de, 246. 

Lawn tennis. Origin of, 192. 

Lawrence, George, 37. 

Leigh, Austin, 72. 

Leigh-Pemberton, Lieutenant- 
Colonel W., 222, 271. 

Leinster, Duke of, 109. 

Leleu, Madame, 143. 

Leopold II. and his hairdresser, 32. 

Lesseps, M. de, 184. 

Lewinsky, 230. 

Leyton's at Windsor, 92. 

Liegnitz, Princess, 7. 

Linda, Bertha, 231. 

Lister-Kaye, Cecil, 82, 98. 

Lister-Kaye, John, 82, 95, 98. 

Little, Lieutenant, 210. 

Lloyd, Lieutenant, 178. 

Lockwood, Sir Frank, 124. 

Lonsdale, Earl of, 49. 

" Lord's," 96. 

Lovell, Lieutenant, 170-172. 

Lovett, Hubert, 192, 194, 199, 203, 
210, 212, 242. 

Lowther, Captain Francis, 166. 

Lumley, Saville, 250. 

Luxmore, Mr., 67. 

Lyons, Lord, 60. 

McCall, Colonel, 163. 
McCHntock-Bunbury, 100. 
McCormack, Surgeon-Major, 208. 
MacDonnell, Dr., 105. 
Macnamara, Surgeon-Major, 194, 

210, 242. 
Magruder, Willing Lee, 12. 
Makart, 231. 
Malet, Sir Edward, 117. 
Malortie, Baron de, 144. 
Maltby, Lieutenant, 169. 
Mandeville, Lord, 77, 98. 
Manners, Henry F. B., 99. 
Marsham, Sub-Lieutenant, 208. 



276 



Index 



Masini, Mademoiselle, 245. 
Massey, Lieutenant-Colonel, 206. 
Materna, Frau, 231. 
Menier, 138. 

Metternich, Princess von, 117. 
Meux, Lady Louisa, 156. 
Milbanke, Frederick, 28. 
Misa, Seiior, 258. 
Mitchell, R. A. H., 74. 
Moltke, Count von, 131. 
Montgomery, Colonel H. P., 190. 
Montgomery, Basil, 183, 267. 
Moore, Colonel Montgomery, 188, 

202. 
Morny, Due de, 7. 
Miinchhausen, Baron von, 256. 
Murray, Lady Caroline, 5, 40. 
Murray, Lieutenant- General Hon. 

George, 55. 
Murree and Ischl compared, 201. 
Musard's concerts, 58. 

Nares, Sir George, 241. 
Naylor-Leylands, 161. 
Neii, Baron von, 12. 
Neuss, Herr, 229, 230. 
New hats for old, 158. 
Newcastle, Duke of, 38. 
Newcastle, Duchess of, 246. 
Newenham, Mr. (" Sporting Par- 
son "), 47, 49. 
Newlands, Lord, 99. 
Northey, Major, 224, 265. 

Oden Wald, The, 18. 

Olga, Grand Duchess, and Ludwig 

II., 30. 
Onslow, Earl of, 82. 
Oppenheim, Frau, 239. 
Orloff, Princess, 31. 
Orton, Surgeon-Major, 254. 
Ostend, 28, 31. 
Oyster, The, 193. 

Paganini, 157. 

Paget, Lord Henry, 37, 148, 252, 



Paradhenia, Garden of, 185. 

Paris, 116. 

Parnell, Hon. V. A., 99. 

Parnell, Miss Fanny, 153. 

Parry, Sir, Hubert 82. 

Paschinger, 232. 

Patti, Adelina, 54, 58, 263. 

Pauli, Captain, 191. 

Peabody Georges, 134. 

Pembroke and Montgomery, Earl 

of, 82. 
Periafiel, Marchioness de, 151. 
" Penny Readings," 172. 
Perponcher, Count, 8. 
Peterborough's, Bishop of, " tip," 

107. 
Phipps, Hon. Harriet, 84. 
Phipps, Lieutenant Albert, 196, 

210, 211. 
Pietri, Madame, 140. 
Pietris, The, 161. 
Plater, Countess Broel, 138. 
Plessen, Baron von, 135. 
Portman, Hon. E. W. B., 79. 
Prince Consort and Duchess of 

Sutherland, 56. 
Prussia, King of, 1, 3, 7, 17. 

QUENONES DE LeON, DonA, 250. 

Radziwill, Prince Jean, 137. 
Ralli, Augustus, 93. 
Rampa, Marquis de, 256. 
Rathdonnell, Lord, 100. 
Raynard, Mr. (astronomer), 123 
Reeves, Sims, 116. 
Reid, Lieutenant, 216. 
Reszke, Jean de, 264. 
Reuss, Prince, 126. 
Rey, Marquis de, 158. 
Reynardson, Aubrey Birch, 48 
Ricardo, Horace, 100. 
Riddell, Captain, 29. 
Ridley, C. N., 96. 
Ridley, H. M., 95. 
Riggs, Mrs. Joe, 39. 



277 



Index 



Ritter, 231. 

Robartes (llth Hussars), 237. 
Robeck, Captain de, 226. 
Robinson, Captain, 223, 243, 247. 
Ronalds, Mrs., 3, 17. 
Rossmore, Lord, 86. 
Rothschild, Baron P. de, 14. 
Rothschild, Baroness I. E. dc, 217. 
Rothschild, Alphonse de, 162, 
Rueff, Mr., 258. 
Ruspoli, Princess, 39. 
Russell, Sub-Lieutenant, 206. 
Russell-Reynolds, Dr., 270. 
Russian Court secrets, 138. 
Rutland, Duke of, 99. 

Saba, Madame, 152. 

St. James's Palace, 240. 

Sainte Hilaire, Madame, 164. 

Salis Schwabe, Miss, 123. 

Salud, 255. 

Salvini, 244. 

San Carlos, Marquis de, 252. 

Sanford, Sub-Lieutenant, 193. 

Savile, Captain, 236. 

Saville, Archbishop of, 256. 

Saxe-Weimar, Prince Edward of, 

250. 
Schiller, 14. 

Schneider, Hortense, 56. 
Schultz, Herr, 268. 
Schwender's Dancing Hall, 231. 
Shorncliffe, Quarters at, 168. 
Sighicelli, 165. 
Simon, Jules, 111. 
Sivori, 245. 
S lade, Cecil, 140. 
Slade, Harry, 38. 
Smythe, General, 248. 
" Sock "-shops, 87, 88. 
Somerset, Lord Edward, 73, 92, 

250. 
Southey, Lieutenant Richard, 168. 
Spa, 33. 

Stafford, Lady Grace, 103. 
Stafford, Marquis of, 90. 



Stormont, Viscountess, 40. 
Strauss, Johann, 231. 
Sully, Mounet, 229. 
Sunstroke, 268. 

Taaffe, Sub-Lieutenant, 183, 250. 

Taffanel, 165. 

Taille des Essarts, Comtesse de la, 

158. 
Taintegnies, Baron de, 28, 80. 
Tarver, Mr. Henry, 76. 
Taylor, Charles, 47 
Temple ("Mug"), 66. 
Terein, Gabrielle, 246. 
Thackeray, 5. 
Thackeray, St. John, 74. 
The Alhambra, Granada, 258. 
The diminishing candle, 209. 
" The Oyster," 193. 
Thorne, Lieutenant, 267. 
Thornton, C. I., 89. 
Thurlow, Lieutenant E, Hovell, 

240. 
Torpliichen, Lord, 256. 
Trafalgar, Lord, 77. 
Trianon, le Petit, 163. 
Tufnell, Captain, 225. 
Tufton, Captain, 240. 
Tugwell, Mr., 162. 

Vane, Henry de Vere, 98. 

Vane-Tempest, Hon. Henry, 97. 

Vaughan, Arthur Powis, 194. 

Vay, Baron de, 165. 

Versailles, 163. 

Victoria, Queen, 83, 85. 

Vyse, Howard, 129, 155, 261, 271. 

Wagner, 231. 

Walden, Lord Howard de, 27. 
Walden, Lady Howard de, 27. 
Waldteufel (composer), 159. 
Walker, H. B., 90. 
Warre, Rev. Edmund, 73. 
Warre-Malet, Sir A., 61. 
Warre-Malet, Miss Mabel, 51. 



278 



Index 



Warre-Malet, Mrs., 51, 58. 
Warren, Miss Minnie, 153. 
Waterlot, Mademoiselle, 154. 
Wayte, Mr., 70, 71. 
Wellesley, Colonel, 248. 
Westminster, Duke of, 77. 
Wilkinson, Lieutenant E. O. H. 223. 
Williamson, C. D. Robertson, 78. 
Willing, Misses Lee, 12. 
Wilma, Tournay, 231. 
Winchester, 241. 
Windsor Fair, 86. 
Winkelmann, 231. 
Winsloe, Mrs., 35. 



Wolter, Charlotte, 280. 
Wombwell, Sir George, 249. 
Wood, Sub-Lieutenant, 208. 
Woodforde, Mrs. Charles, 112. 
Wiirtemberg, King and Queen of, 

80. 
Wylie, Lieutenant, 226. 

York, Duke of, 56. 
Yorke, Hon. Mrs., 237. 

Zauerthal, Ritter von, 288. 
Zither, The, Lessons on, 165. 
Zither performances, 172, 227. 



279 



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